IndyCar’s $1 Million Exhibition Race At A Club Track Was A Ridiculous Attempt To Recreate The Worst Parts Of Formula 1

If you watched IndyCar’s $1 million exhibition race at Thermal Club on March 24, 2024, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d tuned into a glorified advertisement for the California club track. As commentators flaunted the trackside mansions — with their private chefs and Lamborghini-equipped garages — fans had to wonder: Is this live event even for me, a dedicated IndyCar viewer? Or is this just a frankly ridiculous attempt at emulating the most off-putting elements of Formula 1?

Thermal Club is an exclusive gated community for the kind of rich people who would love having a race track in their backyard. The track is lined with luxury villas, and it costs a minimum of $5 million to buy the package deal of a membership, house, and lot. But if you’re the kind of person who lives in a multi-million dollar home overlooking a race track, then you’re probably the kind of person who already has a multi-million dollar luxury car collection.

One of the club’s several layouts, a 3.067-mile FIA Grade 2 track, was selected to host the Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge IndyCar exhibition. Effectively, this was intended to be a sort of “all-star” race, with a series of 10-lap heat races narrowing down the field for a 12-car, 20-lap final (that featured a 10 minute break at the halfway point). The winner of that final would take home $500,000, not the advertised $1 million.

If that whole concept sounds perplexing to you, then I’ve got bad news. The execution was worse.

Motorsport, as a whole, is growing in America. When we were confined to our couches during the COVID-19 pandemic, many folks turned to Netflix to pass the time; as a result, “Drive to Survive,” the streaming service’s docuseries about Formula 1, exploded. F1 was one of the first forms of live sport to return while other series remained on hiatus, and unlikely viewers tuned in just for the communal experience of watching something with a big group of your online friends. The compelling 2021 F1 season kept viewers around — but as many Americans checked out ticket prices or grew bored of 2022’s extremely procedural events, they started to look outside of F1 for a similar, but ultimately less expensive and more compelling, thrill.

IndyCar has been perfectly poised to attract those disaffected F1 fans looking for something new. The events are contentious, ticket prices are cheap, drivers are sociable, some of your favorite former DTS stars now race in the series, and with plenty of U.S.-based race locations to choose from, it’s also easier to travel for IndyCar.

IndyCar, though, hasn’t seemed quite sure what to do about this influx of new attention.

That isn’t a total shock; after all, American open-wheel has a long tradition of shooting itself in the foot. Constant battles between series owners and team personnel resulted in the sport fracturing multiple times; the opposing factions reunified in 2008 as a way to stave off bankruptcy, but regaining legitimacy has been an uphill battle ever since. The reason why it’s cheap to attend an IndyCar race, for example, is because not many fans have been going. The reason why the races are contentious is because IndyCar is fielding the same chassis it introduced over a decade ago. The reason why the drivers are personable social media mavens is because the series has consistently dropped the ball on promotion, leaving drivers like Josef Newgarden, James Hinchcliffe, and Pato O’Ward to shoulder the task.

But there has been reason to be hopeful. Despite all of its struggles, IndyCar has been growing. Former Formula 1 racers like Romain Grosjean and Marcus Ericsson have raised the sport’s profile. Prospective F1 talents like O’Ward, Colton Herta, and Alex Palou have built very impressive careers in IndyCar. South American investors from Argentina and Brazil have poured millions into the sport. Pato O’Ward alone has leveraged such an impressive audience in Mexico that he can sustain his own merchandise lines, organize Spanish-language race broadcasts, and sell out grandstands that are specific to his fans.

IndyCar has responded by turning inward, shutting itself off from an international future, and emulating the very worst parts of F1.

The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge IndyCar exhibition is a perfect epitome of the sport’s current misguided approach to growing its own profile.

First, let’s look at the strange nature of the event in the first place. Its timing — two weeks after the opening race of the IndyCar season in St. Pete, but about a month before the subsequent race in Long Beach — is confusing. The hype for the season has barely begun. As a result, the Thermal event felt like a hastily organized attempt at maintaining momentum during IndyCar’s start-and-stop beginning to 2024. Further, the race took place after a two-day open test session at Thermal, making it feel as if IndyCar simply couldn’t wedge in enough pre-season testing and needed to turn this post-St. Pete test into something more compelling.

Then came the supposed $1 million prize. About three weeks before the planned running of the Thermal event, I heard from two insiders that the series had struggled to raise the necessary funds. As a result, the $1 million prize for the winner was reduced to $500,000 — a frustrating reduction in funds, considering the fact that IndyCar intended its drivers to race all-out and potentially damage their vehicles for what could potentially be no financial gain. Just look at Romain Grosjean’s frustration after being wrecked in the first heat race; during a post-collision interview, he said, “Who is going to pay for the damage? We come here with no points on the line, we do nothing wrong and the car is completely smashed. What is that? It’s not what I signed to IndyCar for.”

Further, ticket packages for the event were initially sold for a whopping $2,000. When the series failed to sell out, it was forced to drop the price to $500 — and issue refunds to the folks who had spent the big bucks on the event. Teams were pleased, since they had also been forced to spend $2,000 just to bring guests to the track that weekend.

The races themselves weren’t particularly compelling. Drivers held back in an attempt to preserve their tires, but Thermal’s narrow width also prevented a ton of passing. The 10-minute mid-final break was deeply confusing. One driver was disqualified from the final because his team miscalculated his fuel needs. Another driver had to withdraw thanks to a throttle problem. The podium was effectively just three boxes of varying sizes plopped in, essentially, a lot in front of someone’s villa. Before the event had even ended, Racer was already reporting that the event would need to be “evaluated” before IndyCar would confirm a return.

All the while, the commentators were seemingly forced to mention the gorgeous amenities and explain the nature of Thermal Club over and over and over again. Commentator Townsend Bell was sent around the track to show off how rich Thermal’s residents are.

IndyCar seemed confused about what the event was supposed to be. Fans were sold on this made-for-TV event as if it would be something akin to an all-star event, but there wasn’t enough pomp and circumstance for that to be the case. Why, for example, did the series force a 10-minute break in the middle of a 20-lap event if it wasn’t going to fill the gap with, say, a concert? Why were there so many rules structuring races that were supposed to be fun? Why was there no attempt at glitzing up the podium celebration? What was the intrigue and draw — especially when it became clear that the winner would not be taking home $1 million? I’ve seen weekend kart races at K1 Speed with more impressive execution and a clearer sense of purpose.

Part of me wants to say that IndyCar intended the event to be a commercial considering all of the broadcast promotion it did for Thermal Club, but I think that would be far too generous. No one watching this race at home is going to go out and spend $5 million to become a member of a prestigious private race track.

No; instead, this felt like a frankly desperate plea by IndyCar directed at wealthy investors who might be able to inject some life into the sport. See? If you funnel some money into IndyCar, we’ll show off your impressive car collection on TV! We’ll give you exclusive access to our drivers! You’ll have so much fun! Please!!!!

As a longtime IndyCar fan, it was embarrassing to watch. It’s like IndyCar decided it wanted to adopt the worst part of F1 — its ultra-exclusive mindset dedicated to attracting celebrities and forcing fans to pay out the nose for the pleasure of seeing a car fly by every now and again — without offering fans any of the benefits you’d get from F1. At least if I spent $2,000 on a ticket to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, I could justify it by feeling as if I’d just witnessed a capital-E Event. At Thermal, I’d rather spend a few hundred bucks and drive the track myself courtesy of BMW’s Performance Driving School.

Things look bad for IndyCar right now, in a lot of ways. The series has once again delayed the introduction of its promised hybrid engines — a technology that will be in its third developmental stage in Formula 1 by the time it makes its IndyCar debut — because one of its two engine suppliers simply isn’t ready; meanwhile, the other engine supplier is looking for an out.

The much-hyped season finale in Nashville, Tennessee is no longer happening — at least not as promised. Instead of racing through downtown streets, the series will set up shop at Nashville Superspeedway instead. While many diehard IndyCar fans are happy that the finale will once again take place on an oval, the teams are irate. According to Marshall Pruett’s mailbag on Racer, many teams leveraged the downtown Nashville finale as part of the package they pitched to sponsors for 2024. Let me just pull right from the story:

From not being able to get refunds on their downtown hotels to losing Nashville GP-specific sponsors to having sponsors call with serious concerns about the bait-and-switch with the huge hype with the downtown finale going away for an oval event they didn’t want or ask for when they signed their contracts.

Based on all they were told about the splashy new season finale in downtown Nashville, each team went and hyped up their sponsors, made big plans, and built that event into their 2024 sponsorship and promotions plans. And what happens when the downtown event goes away? The teams are the ones who look like idiots. Penske Entertainment didn’t offer to call all of those sponsors and apologize and smooth things over. That was left to the teams, which have caught hell for it.

[…]

Countless relationships have been stressed. How many total logos are on the field of 27 cars, and how many calls to those sponsors, and how many blistering inbound calls or emails or texts did the Rahals and Shanks and Carpenters and Andrettis and so on receive about Nashville? None of their faults, but they get all the heat. Not a good look.

On top of that, Penske Entertainment — the owner of IndyCar — has adamantly refused to expand into new markets. Instead of forging a compelling new path forward, we’ll be returning to the Milwaukee Mile in 2024. Many team personnel I’ve spoken to have criticized that direction as being a safe way forward. Unfortunately, “safe” does not necessarily mean “successful.”

IndyCar’s Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge is just one more example that the series is looking in the wrong direction for growth — and it is increasingly frustrating, because so many people are absolutely desperate for the series to expand its horizons.

Back in November, Jalopnik spoke to Arrow McLaren IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward. O’Ward hails from Mexico, where he has almost singlehandedly leveraged a massive international audience; he knows that market well, and he knows its absolutely rabid for an IndyCar event. And yet, it isn’t happening.

“It’s mind-boggling that we don’t race in Mexico,” O’Ward said, the exasperation clear in his voice. “And then IndyCar was like, oh, we’re gonna have an exhibition race at Thermal. What? If we’re going to do something, let’s do it properly.”

Surely the introduction of an IndyCar race outside of the U.S. and Canada would bring in a slew of interested investors. Surely a race in Mexico City would be far more compelling for the teams, the drivers, and their sponsors. Surely IndyCar could have found a way to negotiate the logistics of international travel, if only it were willing to try.

The problem is, IndyCar doesn’t seem willing.

Let’s look at another example: Juncos Hollinger Racing. Former racer Ricardo Juncos has invested heavily in the IndyCar ladder program since 2009; his team has produced exceptional talents that have graduated to race series around the world, and as of late, he’s fielded fellow Argentinian Agustín Canapino. Argentina is — and has been — desperate for some kind of IndyCar event hosted within its borders. That event, as well as a similar one in Brazil, has been “on the horizon” for years, with no indication that it will ever come to fruition.

There’s a massive amount of potential should IndyCar be willing to look below the U.S. border; even Pato O’Ward has presented the idea that IndyCar should look to take over all of the Americas as a way to become more globally relevant without trying to completely mimic a series like Formula 1.

“We have this massive pool of people in Latin America waiting for a race,” O’Ward told Jalopnik. “Go full-in. Brazil. Argentina. Mexico. Uruguay. Somewhere in South America, then maybe a race in Europe — then we’ve got a badass calendar.”

Instead, IndyCar’s apparent interest in expanding its horizons extends only to American tracks it has already raced at, and to building a charter system that forces teams to pay for the privilege to race.

The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge was a bad event for IndyCar, yes, but it’s far from the first warning sign the series has waved in the past few years; rather, it is just the most egregious and public red flag we’ve seen yet. It was a farce. It was embarrassing to watch. It’s also indicative of the direction IndyCar has been going for several years.

In an ideal world, the overwhelming backlash to an event like the Thermal exhibition would serve as the eye-opening moment IndyCar needs to reevaluate its current direction and find a way to change. Unfortunately, that seems like far too much to ask for.