A Nice Idea, With Few Drawbacks
With all of the hoopla going into last weekend’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey, and then the post-race aftermath – there was one nugget that came out of the weekend that has generated some confusion and some unwarranted (in my opinion) backlash among some fans. Personally, it’s an idea that I think has very few drawbacks.
The NTT IndyCar Series will stage an exhibition non-points race next season at The Thermal Club, just outside of Palm Springs, California; site of this past season’s Spring Training, on March 22-24, 2024. That much is clear. What is also clear is that this exhibition will take place after the season-opener at St. Petersburg on the weekend of March 10.
After that, things get a little muddled. If you listened to Trackside the other night, even Curt Cavin and Kevin Lee seemed to disagree on whether this would be a first or second trip to the exclusive club track for the series, next spring. Curt seemed to think that there would be a Spring Training session there before the season-opener, while Kevin seemed pretty sure that this would be the only time the series would visit The Thermal Club in 2024. To add to the confusion, Marshall Pruett reported that Spring Training would take place in conjunction with this new event – just a few days before. That would be a little odd, to have Spring Training after the season-opener. Pruett rationalized that would be no big deal, since there would be so many pre-season tests involving the hybrid engines coming on board.
Fans added to the confusion, by misinterpreting this event as an all-star race; similar to CART’s Marlboro Challenge, NASCAR’s The Winston or whatever they call it now, or even the Busch Clash. None of those events had full-fields. Drivers had to earn their way in by either winning a pole, a race or accumulating enough points. This is not that.
I’ve seen where some fans have even compared it to the ill-conceived Hawaiian Super Prix, which was to be an invitation-only exhibition race to be run on a temporary street-circuit set up on what is now known as Honolulu International Airport. It was schedule to run a couple of weeks following the 1999 season. I saw in The Racer Mailbag this week, that one fan was making the comparison but claimed that it was cancelled due to Greg Moore being fatally injured in the season finale at Fontana a couple of weeks earlier.
I was surprised Pruett didn’t correct him, but it had already been cancelled before that fateful Fontana weekend. While that sounds nice that an event was cancelled out of respect to Moore; it was a number of missteps, mismanagement, bad decisions and lack of revenue that cancelled that event. Most of us were skeptical when we first heard it being discussed. Few fans were convinced it would ever really happened when it was announced.
I don’t have that same feeling about this event. Mark Miles and Roger Penske have a much better history of thinking things through, than CART management did in the late nineties.
Contrary to popular belief, this is not an all-star race. All teams and cars are required to participate. Now the format will be completely different. Details are still to be worked out, but it sounds like after some form of qualifying – there will be two heat races. Then the Top-Six from each heat race will transfer into the feature. Winning the feature will pay $1 Million to the winner, and the purse is being described as a multi-million-dollar purse. There is some arrangement among Thermal Club members about splitting earnings with the Top-Five finishers, but those details are vague, at best.
Some of the backlash comes from fans that are unhappy with the small amount of tickets available. Some fear it will be similar to the upcoming F1 race in Las Vegas, where only the rich and famous will be able to afford to attend. I don’t think that’s the case here. The small amount of tickets available is due to the logistics of the property. This is a private track, with exclusive homes built all around it and in a gated community. There are no stands on the property.
My understanding is that an arrangement has been worked out with Thermal Club residents, to have some temporary stands brought in. But from what I recall seeing from the shots I saw of the property back in the spring, there aren’t many spots where they can go. I’m also pretty certain that residents of a gated community, even one built around a race track, aren’t going to be wild about having thousands of race fans take over their property for the weekend.
From what I understand, although tickets will be very limited – they will be about the same price as any other IndyCar race. I have no idea how they will determine who gets to go, perhaps some sort of lottery system? That’s one of the many details that will need to be worked out in the coming months.
Keeping that in mind, I don’t think I would plan on making The Thermal Club a racing destination for 2024. This sounds more like a made-for-TV event. Supposedly, NBC had a hand in this and will carry the even live on Big NBC. If they really want to treat it like a big event, they should air the qualifying and heat races on NBC as well.
To be honest, I’m not real sure where the negatives are for this event that some people are squawking about. It sounds as if this will be an eighteenth event to be added to the IndyCar schedule. It fills a huge gap in the calendar between St. Petersburg and Texas, assuming that Texas is on the 2024 schedule and falls on the same weekend as last season. When points aren’t involved, we sometimes see drivers get a little more racy than when they might settle for a solid third-place finish, instead of going all-out for a win.
Best of all, it’s another chance to see IndyCar on-track, in a picturesque setting. Race cars with palm trees and mansions in the background can make for quite the camera shot, especially as most of the country is just starting to dig out from winter.
I don’t really see a drawback to this idea, but then again – the Legions of the Miserable can usually find something to complain about with just about everything. There is a reason that the late Eric Schwarzkopf, a good friend to many readers here, always used to post this on his Facebook page.
If you know of a legitimate drawback to this event, please let me know in the comment section – because right now, I can’t think of one.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 
September 15, 2023 at 6:00 am
George, I wonder if some of the “exhibition” nature of this brings back Dan Wheldon 5 million dollar race memories for some, now, personally, I think it’s long time to move on, but some people wanted the sport to end, oval racing to end, etc, after that. I also recall people discussing the nature of the 5 million dollar bounty being the cause, when we know it wasn’t. Dan was in the back of the pack either way, he qualified back there before he was seeded in the back anyway.
Personally though, I hate exhibition events, just make them count for normal points and wins! I like the idea of the race otherwise, make it exclusive, make it a TV show, whatever. We know that Scott Dixon will luck into in anyway we set the field….
September 15, 2023 at 7:19 am
Another three races. What’s not to like.
September 15, 2023 at 7:34 am
I have no problems with this event, however I agree with Andrew…I’d prefer it be a points-paying race.
September 15, 2023 at 8:49 am
George,
The only drawback I can see here is the lack of in-person attendance, which there’s not really any good way to resolve. But more Indycar racing more than makes up for that! Just wish they could finalize the rest of the schedule 🙂
September 15, 2023 at 9:03 am
I guess if you asked me if this was a step in the right direction for Indycar I’d emphatically say no. I don’t know much about this but it does sound like a party for all of Roger’s rich friends. I’ve never paid much attention to MLB spring training or NFL preseason games. Sounds like this will fall in the same bucket for me.
I had to look it up. If you want to join the Therma Club there is a $175,000 initiation fee followed by a $6,000 per month membership fee. You also have to buy a lot and build a 30,000 square foot home within 5 years of joining (an estimated cost of at least $5 million.) That leaves me out.
September 15, 2023 at 9:22 am
As the song goes……………..
How much does it cost ? ?
I’ll buy it………………… :o)
September 15, 2023 at 10:13 am
Oh, it’s definitely a party for Roger’s rich friends. I expect that is a big part of the reason it is happening.
Or rather, the idea is that it will be a party where Roger’s rich friends make the acquaintance of a bunch of other rich car enthusiasts… who in turn might become the rich friends of Roger, Chip, Michael, Zak, Bobby, Dale, Ricardo, Mike, Ed, or Larry.
September 15, 2023 at 10:07 am
I don’t see anything about this worth complaining about, though perhaps some areas for constructive criticism. I would prefer a points-paying race, but I don’t struggle with this being a non-points race. It’s not like the series did not add stakes to the results.
Perhaps the best analogue to this event may be the Indianapolis Sweepstakes races that AAA and USAC ran at Williams Grove in the 50s. These were non-championship exhibitions held on the half mile Williams Grove dirt track, an unconventional place for championship cars at that time. Only 14 cars were allowed to start due to the length of the track. Much in the same way, the Thermal Club exhibition is unconventional. The race format will be, as will the location and limited outside crowd.
September 15, 2023 at 9:10 pm
I don’t see a problem with it myself. I a lot of today’s so called fans just use anything to batch on social media!
September 15, 2023 at 10:30 pm
Risking their necks for no points and no fans? No thanks.
September 16, 2023 at 2:38 am
A motorsports journalist wrote that the purpose of racing at Thermal was to attract new team owners, in addition to filling an opening in the schedule. The club at Thermal surely has the budget to be a good host. I say host instead of promoter because with the missing spectator facilities, the event will not need to be promoted to be successful on a business level.
The only thing I find weird about this race is that the series probably underestimates the demand of the fans to witness this race in person and deliberately tries running it at a facility that is just not able to accomodate a crowd. I understand why the series wants to try out different concepts. This one is certainly different and I wish them all the best with it. But racing just for TV and not paying any points raises doubts about the grass roots foundations of this series, all the while the TV footage will only increase demands for watching from trackside if they were to race again in Thermal the following year.
Through all of the talk about Thermal, another oddity of the 2024 calendar was overshadowed. Laguna in June? Don’t they remember how Fontana in June went down? No fans in the stands, and then it was gone. The way that is going, it looks like IndyCars will be back at Sonoma in 2025.
Also, I still find it odd that IndyCar is already packing up for the winter whilst my personal cycling season is still ongoing. But there is no football around here in Europe, so what do I know? 😉
September 18, 2023 at 9:06 am
Laguna Seca is in a VERY different climate than Fontana, despite both being in California. The average June high in Monterey, CA is about 25 degrees cooler than the average June high in Fontana. In fact, Laguna Seca’s recent September date is in its area’s hottest time of year, it will likely be 5-10 degrees cooler for a race in June.
September 16, 2023 at 8:11 am
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