2013 ARLA Elite Series season

The 2013 ARLA Elite Series season is the 41st and current season of the ARLA Elite Series, presented by Smash Beer.

Promotional video
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Preseason changes
For the first time, teams will be permitted to have two drivers use the same car to compete for the championship together. Among the teams running shared cars are Gravity Racing, Inc., Kurt Walker Motorsports, Racers with Disabilities, and Green Racing.

The Tornado Alley Trophy was introduced as an exclusively short track-oriented championship, consisting of its own class of cars competing alongside the Elite Series regulars in a certain number of races within the tornado alley region of the United States. It is believed that the idea behind the Tornado Alley Trophy was to give short track teams something to compete for without having to travel as much as the series regulars. However, some of the more established teams also are fielding their own entries in the Tornado Alley Trophy.

In the fall of 2012, inline-four engines were approved to compete alongside the V6s previously mandated by the series. This is the first time that engines with varying cylinder counts will be allowed since 1993. The typically lower cost of an L4 is expected to be very attractive for the low-budget teams, but it comes at the cost of lower power. However, the L4s have historically been much lighter than the V6s, making them competitive on tracks where cornering speed is more important than power.

Another development in the "engine wars" occurred in January 2013, when ARLA published additional regulations that approved inline-three engines for competition. However, no team appears to be willing to touch them as of now.

Schedule
20 race weekends will take place this year. New to this season are "split weekends", where the first race of a weekend is held at one track, and the second is held at a different track a reasonable distance away. This was done in order to give races to more tracks without scheduling too many weekends. During split weekends, teams may opt to choose which track to attend, overriding the rules placing them into their default race as determined by their finishing position in their previous race.

The annual endurance race moves to Pocono Raceway for Independence Day, with the race format being 776 kilometers (193 laps) around the 2.5 mile triangle.

The Japanese tour in 2012 was seen as a success, and will return in 2013. ARLA will also hold its first race in Russia; RUS Autosport team boss Vitaly Tsolikov had offered to promote a race at Miachkovo Airport out of his own pocket. On the weekends of the overseas races, there will also be points races in the United States for teams that may opt out of traveling.


 * Blue squares indicate a road/street course event.
 * Yellow squares indicate a Tornado Alley Trophy event.

Team chart
About 40 teams are expected to show up for every North American race, with several more teams opting to run partial schedules. This is similar to how teams operated in the early years of the sport, when about half of the field in each race was made up of one-off cars. It is not certain how many teams are expected to show up for the Japanese and Russian races.

An asterisk indicates that the driver is an R-Kuh Brakes Rookie of the Year candidate.

Color codes

 * Numbers in blue indicate an entry that isn't expected to run the full schedule.
 * Numbers in green indicate a shared championship entry.
 * Numbers in yellow indicate a Tornado Alley Trophy entry.

2013 Points System

 * 1 bonus point goes to all drivers who lead at least one lap in a race.
 * 3 bonus points goes to the Hard Charger in a race (the driver who gains the most positions from their original starting position in a race).
 * 5 bonus points goes to the race's polesitter.
 * 5 bonus points goes to the driver who leads the most laps in a race.