Rounds 1 & 2 of the North American MINI Cooper Challenge series will take place on Friday, 28 March at Spring Mountain Motor Sports Ranch near Las Vegas, NV.
Organized by Phil Wicks and sponsored by Mini Mania of Nevada City, CA this series is similar to the ones in Europe and Australia but does not use the purpose-built Challenge cars. There will also be an autocross event at the track. A 10 race series at six different tracks across the USA is planned.

I'm planning to attend this event as a spectator, we aren't running our car in the series.

Well I attended the event near Las Vegas. There were lots of MINIs there for the driver's education activities on the track and about 30 cars in the Solo I autocross event. Solo I is a timed lap on the track event, but the cars a spaced out so it is not a wheel to wheel race. It is also not what is know here as Solo II, which is the more common autocross through a flat course of cones. The Challenge race was somewhat disappointing, only three cars were entered and one had been damaged in an earlier off track excursion and was not 100%. The other two played with each other for the crowd. I hope more cars eventually turn out for the series.

MINIUSA sponsored the free lunch at the track, hope you managed to get a ticket. I heard GP 0223 had a small off road incident, and GP 0019 did very well. :)

The lunch was nice, several choices from the grille. I saw four GPs in the parking area at the track, but as you noted, 0019 and 0223 were the two of the four on the course. 0223's off course excursion, which I saw, didn't keep him from running again later in the afternoon.