This weekend IndyCar will contest an exhibition round at a private motor club facility, giving teams and drivers a chance to test their cars for a couple days as well as win a healthy monetary bonus if they perform well on Sunday.
It has been 16 years since IndyCar has held a non-points-paying round, and the series is hoping a unique format will be exciting for drivers and a fun viewing experience for fans watching from home.
Nothing is typical about the weekend schedule, so it is worth looking at what drivers can expect when they arrive at the track this Friday.
The Track
The Thermal Club is the setting for IndyCar’s first exhibition race in over a decade. The facility is a private club in southern California that caters to wealthy racing enthusiasts that like to take exotic and powerful cars out on their own closed course.
Members have the ability to purchase plots of land trackside and construct houses just past the safety fencing, with nearly 100 having built residences on the property. No doubt these houses have ample garage space where they can store their prized motorized possessions between track runs.
The club’s members will get a unique experience during the event weekend, as some individuals will be paired with the 27 professional drivers that are participating in the challenge. The members will be embedded within the team for the duration, and get an up close and personal view into what it takes to get an IndyCar on track.
The track itself is a long and winding course, with 17 turns spread around 3.067 miles of asphalt. There is very little in the way of elevation changes, but plenty of sweeping corners and gravel runoffs to keep the drivers on their toes.
During the preseason open test session held here ahead of the 2023 season, drivers were lapping the course just under the 1 minute 40 second barrier at an average speed of 112 MPH. Similar speeds are expected this weekend, with a slightly lighter car being balanced out by a slightly harder compound of Firestone tires.
There is nothing in the way of permanent grandstands or midway displays, and not even a large enough pit road to handle hot pit stops. The facility was designed for club member use only, so only a couple thousand fans were allowed to purchase pricey tickets to attend the special event. Full television coverage by NBC will give fans a familiar way to watch from home, however.
The Format
Kicking off the weekend is two days of open testing. Four separate sessions are being held throughout the opening days, and are a replacement for the typical preseason open test that was not held ahead of the 2024 season. The sessions also serve as practice time for drivers ahead of the more important running later on.
Late in the afternoon on Saturday, the series’ 27 drivers will be split into two groups and will set fast times to qualify for Sunday’s running. The standard knockout format will not be in use, and the single 12-minute run each driver gets will set the order.
Sunday is when the action gets going in earnest. Drivers from the first qualifying group will participate in a 10-lap heat race against their half of the field. The top six drivers will advance to the finals, while the rest will be done for the weekend. A second heat race will be run directly after to set the other half of the final.
The final $1 million challenge will take place shortly after, with all 12 advancing drivers competing against one another for a pot of cash. The final will consist of two 10-lap segments, with only fuel and wing angles allowed to be adjusted in between.
Drivers will have 40 seconds of Push to Pass for each segment, and laps under caution will not count towards the total. Once the 20 laps are complete, the checkered flags will wave, and the winner will claim his bonus.
The prize
The format is unique and should provide some interesting scenarios, as long as drivers are fighting over something desirable. Championship points may not on the line, but a substantial amount of money is.
The overall winner of the weekend will earn a healthy $500,000 prize in addition to bragging rights for the event. Of course not all of that will go directly into the winner’s pockets – the team is technically the one that earns the prize money after all, not to mention taxes, but the lure of that many zeroes should help give everyone ample motivation to fight hard on track.
Originally, a Thermal Club member that would have been paired with the winning driver was also going to receive $500,000, but that format was shelved after a more ambitious weekend plan fell through. Instead of members putting forward a buy-in fee and competing in their own race that contributed to the overall standings, they will simply be embedded within the teams in the paddock and stay involved in the action that way.
Prizes for the other top finishers are nothing to sneeze at either, with second place earning $350,000 and third place walking away with $250,000. Any place on the podium will be a desirable outcome considering the significant sums on offer for all three places.
The fourth and fifth place finishers will earn $100,000 and $50,000 respectively, with each of the other participants taking home $23,000 each. The total prize purse for the weekend is over $1.7 million, allowing IndyCar to market the event with the enticing $1 Million Challenge moniker.
Nobody is quite sure what to expect from the experience, but with Texas Motor Speedway off the schedule, the series had a gap to fill and was willing to try out a new format. With the entire weekend set up to cater to a television audience with lots of fun moments scattered between some intense racing, it is easy to see why most in the paddock are eager to give it a try.
The two qualifying runs will take place at 8:00 PM Eastern on Saturday night, and the streaming service Peacock will broadcast the action. The heat races and all star finale will be broadcast on NBC starting at 12:30 PM Eastern Sunday afternoon.
