Source: Graves Yamaha.

A second professional road racing series has been launched in the United States it has been confirmed, formed by magazine publisher and team owner John Ulrich.

The three-round series will feature events at Sanoma Raceway, Auto Club Speedway and Miller Motorsports Park in 2014, introduced following AMA Pro Racing’s non inclusion of West Coast-based events in its five-round schedule.

Click here for details on AMA Pro Racing’s 2014 series.

Round one will take place at Sanoma in Northern California on 3-4 May in an event hosted and sanctioned by the American Federation of Motorcyclists (AFM). It will feature the Pro Superbike and Pro Sportbike (like Supersport) categories.

“When I learned that there were no national-level professional road races scheduled west of the Mississippi River for the 2014 season, I realized that I had to try to make something happen,” said Ulrich, who owns and operations Roadracing World magazine and the GEICO Honda team.

“This event is the first step, and is modeled after the successful formula used by British Superbike. I’d like to thank the AFM, the club I started racing with in 1973, for working with me on this effort to rebuild our sport in the United States.”

It’s been confirmed that multiple American Superbike Champion Josh Hayes’ Monster Energy Graves Yamaha headline the field, alongside a quality grid including J.D. Beach, Cameron Beaubier, Garrett Gerloff and Jake Zemke.

“From a racer’s perspective, I’m excited that someone has put in the effort to give us racers the opportunity to spend more time racing our awesome Superbikes,” Hayes said. “A big thank you for that.

“We’ve always had good crowds at Sonoma Raceway. It’s one of the best tracks we go to in the country and one that’s always brought me a lot of success.”

Organisers are currently working on a television package for the series, according to an announcement made today.

“This is probably the coolest thing that I have been able to be involved with since I’ve been the president of the club,” said AFM president Berto Wooldridge. “It fundamentally changes the landscape of AFM racing to have a signature event at our home track that brings in AFM amateurs and semi-pro and pro riders from across the country.”

Click here for further information on the event and fledging series.