INDIANAPOLIS – One of the highlights of the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule over the past several seasons has been the overwhelming continuity and date equity that has been built for the majority of the venues on the calendar.

Both of those factors continued this week with the announcement of the 2019 season schedule. Fifteen of the 17 facilities that hosted Indy car racing this season will do so again next year, with all but two of the returning tracks falling on the exact same weekend that they held their IndyCar Series stop in 2017.

That’s music to the ears of Hulman & Company President and CEO Mark Miles, who oversees IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but Miles also added that it’s not easy for any sanctioning body to accomplish what IndyCar has managed to over the past three to five years.

“One of the toughest things for sanctioning bodies to do, or the folks who run the leagues in any sport, is to make the schedule. There are so many different considerations,” said Miles during a teleconference following the 2019 schedule release on Tuesday. “It starts with the league’s desire to have the strongest possible events, where events are both compelling and dominant in the market where you compete and capable of making national news and achieving television and media ratings.

“You quickly get all the considerations from the promoter, because what works most years in a place might not work in a given year … whether they host a major event from time to time or there’s another local event that comes in that folks have to sort out,” Miles added. “You have to marry those considerations with the optimal television schedule, the concerns of your broadcasters, all that.

“We will always be looking on the margins to improve the reach and strength of our series through its schedule, while taking care of all those other considerations at the same time, but we’re really happy with what we landed at for next season.”

Miles also explained that the process of coming to a final schedule never involves just one tweak, because a single adjustment tends to have an effect on multiple other events on the calendar as well.

“It’s kind of an alchemy; it takes a lot of communication,” noted Miles. “You almost never can deal with a track on a bilateral basis between just you and them. If they need to make a change, it has a domino effect on others.”

That philosophy could best be exemplified by the addition of Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, to a spring slot on the 2019 IndyCar Series calendar. Nearby Texas Motor Speedway hosts an annual IndyCar event each June following the Indianapolis 500, with promoter Eddie Gossage reportedly getting a lower sanctioning fee in exchange for giving up his geographic exclusivity on Indy car racing in Texas.

Another constant has been the total number of races on the schedule, which remains at 17 for the second-straight season and has hovered in that realm since 2015.

At least for the moment, Miles doesn’t forsee the schedule expanding beyond 17 races, but he didn’t rule out the possibility of a larger schedule down the road.

“We’re not looking to grow the number at this point. As our economics improve that would be great, but for now I think this is about the right (number) and the right length,” admitted Miles.

However, Miles did stress that international expansion is still high on the list of things he’d like to accomplish.

“We’re still of a view that if we could find one or two really strong international races that add value for the series and the competitors in February, that’s something we would look at,” Miles noted. “That would be an exception to the idea that we’re big enough as we’re sized right now. That would give us a reason to look at growing the number of events.

“Generally we don’t want to go too long in September. We’d like to start earlier in February if it was out of the U.S.,” Miles added. “I want to see more people in seats and more impact in the markets where we race. I think that’s generally happening and we’ll continue to look for ways to improve on that.”

Until that time comes, fans can look forward to the continuation of the current IndyCar scheduling model.

“We’re really proud of our long-term relationships,” said Miles. “Those events are getting better and growing. That’s good for our series and we feel it benefits our fanbase as well.”