The Lucas Oil Midwest LateModel Racing Association today announced a front-loaded 2023 schedule with nine of 24 scheduled events over the first 30 days of a busy spring. MLRA's 35th season takes the tour to 11 tracks (down from 15 in 2023) in five states with seven events co-sanctioned by the big brother Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. | 2023 MLRA schedule

Among the biggest changes from 2022 is the addition of a two-race weekend early in the season at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Ill., which again hosts a season-ending doubleheader on Oct. 13-14. Tri-City's first events, paying $5,000- and $7,000-to-win like the October weekend, is scheduled for April 7-8.

Tri-City's four events are second only to the eight races scheduled for the the tour's home track, Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., which opens the season with March 31-April 1 action with $5,000- and $10,000-to-win races.

Adams County Speedway in Quincy, Ill., which MLRA last visited in 2019, is the lone track on the schedule that wasn't on last year's slate. (Lake Ozark Speedway in Eldon, Mo., returns with a doubleheader weekend, but its 2022 races were rained out.)

Adams County hosts a single event on July 2 capping a three-race weekend that includes one-time series visits to C.J. Speedway in Columbus Junction, Iowa, and I-70 Motorsports Park in Odessa, Mo. Other tracks with single visits are Davenport (Iowa) Speedway (on April 13 leading into the April 14-15 Slocum 50 weekend at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa) and Moberly (Mo.) Motorsports Park for the Sept. 3 Weiner Nationals that follows Lucas Oil Speedway's Ron Jenkins Memorial weekend.

MLRA's most lucrative events, both paying $50,000 and co-sanctioned by the Lucas Oil Series, are May 27's Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway and the NAPA Auto Parts Gopher 50 at Deer Creek Speedway in Spring Valley, Minn.