2012 CRL Developmental Division season

The 2012 Continental Racing League Developmental Division season is the inaugural season for the Continental Racing League Developmental Division, the Continental Racing League's new second-tier division, which is designed to be a feeder series to the Continental Racing League Modified Division.

26 cars were entered for the first season, with 2008 CRL Modified Division champion Rallen Hayden and his teammate Liman Mills being among the competitors, having been placed in the division due to recent struggles in the Modified Division.

Teams were allowed to run any engines they wanted. Only one team, Jahgee Racing, which entered three cars, took the CRL up on that allowance, choosing to run Nemoto engines.

The season opening race was run on February 18 at Irwindale Speedway in California, and was won by Miranda Leckliter.

Simple Green is the sponsor for the series' pole award.

Schedule
The schedule consists of 15 races, and all events are held in conjunction with the Modified Division. However, the Developmental Division will not run any races at the five worldwide events the Modified Division will run as part of the inaugural Global Cup, nor will they run at the British Columbia Grand Prix. The Developmental Division will run a full points-paying race at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the night before the Modified Division runs its non-points-paying, limited field All-Star Race. The Developmental Division will run a 19-lap sprint race at Darlington Raceway 90 minutes before the Modified Division runs its race at the track. A different points system will accompany this race, as noted below.


 * The blue boxes represent a road/street course race.

(*)-The Round of New Hampshire was supposed to have been run over 38 laps. However, there were numerous crashes during the course of the race. The race was abandoned after a Lap 29 pileup that wiped out numerous cars. The results for the race were taken from the last green flag lap, which was Lap 28. McSwegan was leading at the time.

Points system
For their 2012 season, the Modified Division switched to a points system in which the Top 33 finishers in each race will score points. The Developmental Division inherited the Modified Division's previous points system:


 * 1 bonus point goes to the race's polesitter
 * 1 bonus point goes to the driver who leads the most laps in the race.

For the race at Darlington, the following points system will be used:


 * Due to the race's short length, no bonus points will be awarded.