Jim Ayello | IndyStar

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Scott Kane, AP

INDIANAPOLIS – If it feels like something is missing this IndyCar championship weekend, it’s because there is: a finalized 2018 schedule.

It’s coming, IndyCar CEO Mark Miles assured, and he’s “optimistic” it will include the widely discussed race in Mexico City.

“We’re planning to announcing either Sept. 25, 26 or 27,” Miles told IndyStar on Saturday.

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While most of the schedule is essentially complete -- all 17 events from 2017 will be back on the calendar in 2018 -- the announcement will come with an update on the anticipated event at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the near 3-mile road course situated within a park that currently hosts Formula 1 and once hosted NASCAR Xfinity Series.

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Miles recently told USA Today Sports’ Brant James that he had hoped to announce the news this weekend at Sonoma, but “if I think four days later we can get it done, we’ll give them four more days.”

It seems now he is prepared to give the organizers, whom he would not identify, even more time in hopes of a 2018 season with Indy cars racing all across North America.

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The race, Miles has said, would likely slot in between the July 30 race at Mid-Ohio and Aug. 20 at Pocono.