For the first time since 2008, the NTT IndyCar Series is hosting a standalone exhibition race along with its full complement of championship races. This event will take place at The Thermal Club in Palm Springs, California, a track that is more known for being the home of novice racers looking to have a good time with their personal sports cars or historic car purchases than professional series. This will be the first IndyCar race at the circuit, but not the first time the series has listed the track, as the 2023 preseason test was held at this facility in late-January last year.
Coverage
Time: Coverage begins at 12:30 p.m. ET on Sunday March 24 with green flag scheduled for 12:45 p.m. ET.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider and Kevin Lee will work pit lane.
Channel: NBC
Announcers: Leigh Diffey, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe will be in the booth. Marty Snider and Kevin Lee will work pit lane.
IndyCar Weekend Schedule
Friday:
First Test Session: 12:00 p.m. ET (120 minutes)
Second Test Session: 5:00 p.m. ET (180 minutes)
Saturday:
Third Test Session: 12:00 p.m. ET (120 minutes)
Fourth Test Session: 4:00 p.m. ET (120 minutes)
Qualifying: 8:00 p.m. ET Sunday:
Race: 12:30 p.m. ET (40 laps split over two heat races and a main event)
* - All sessions will be available live on Peacock
The Event
The Thermal $1 Million Challenge is a non-championship event on the IndyCar schedule that will see the 27 drivers compete in a different format from a traditional race weekend.
Festivities will begin on Thursday March 21 at a draw party, where the grid will be split into two groups and they will compete in those groups for the duration of the weekend. Friday March 22 will strictly be test day with another pair of test sessions on Saturday March 23.
On Saturday evening, qualifying will take place where there will be two sessions for each group. This will determine the starting positions in the two heat races that will take place on Sunday March 24. Different from other IndyCar weekends is each driver will be allotted 40 seconds of push-to-pass that can be used during the session
Heat races will start the action on Sunday. Each heat race is scheduled for ten laps or 20 minutes. Caution laps will not count but the clock will continue running. The top six finishers in each heat race will advance to the 20-lap main event.
The main event will be split into two 10-lap segments. After the first segment, teams will be able to make adjustments to the race car and re-fuel the car. Teams will not be allowed to change tires during the race unless it is for an emergency, and the replacement must be from the qualifying set of tires.
In the main event, each car will get 40 seconds of push-to-pass for each segment with the time resetting after the break. Caution laps will not count but there is not a time limit for the main event.
The winning car will receive $500,000 while second place will earn $350,000 and third gets $250,000. Fourth and fifth will receive $100,000 and $50,000 respectable. Every other driver from sixth through 12th and the drivers that did not advanced from the heat races will receive $23,000.
The Track
The Thermal Club opened in 2012 but the first of three circuit layouts on the property was not complete until 2014 when a 1.8-mile course was finished.
Designed by Alan Wilson, who also designed Barber Motorsports Park, Thermal Club is a country club racetrack, where members pay to build villas on the property with access to the racetrack for track days. Along with a monthly $1,200 fee and $175,000 initiation fee, building a 30,000 square-foot home on the property leads to a membership cost around a $5 million.
The Indianapolis Star's Nathan Brown reported last year Thermal Club had 210 members, 75 properties and 135 lots sold. Brown also reported club founder Tim Rogers hosted then-IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard at the ribbon-cutting ceremony more than a decade ago, and Rogers asked Roger Penske for advice on finding the right asphalt consultant when working on the property.
The circuit IndyCar will race on the is 3.067-mile configuration. The 19-turn circuit hosted IndyCar's preseason test last season. This will be the biggest motorsports event to date held at Thermal Club. Previously, the facility hosted the 2020 SRO America Winter Invitational designed for bronze-level drivers from the various SRO-sanctioned series.
Thermal Club is also home to a BMW Performance Driving School.
What Do We Know?
All we have to base on this event is last year's preseason test at Thermal Club, which was done with heavier cars as the current technical regulations have the cars at a lower weight due to the absence of the hybrid system with an undetermined debut date set for sometime in 2024.
At that test, Marcus Ericsson was the fastest driver with Chip Ganassi Racing and Ericsson's best lap was 98.4223 seconds (112.182 mph). Ericsson led a Honda 1-2-3 as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's Christian Lundgaard was 0.1459 seconds back and Kyle Kirkwood rounded out the top three for then-Andretti Autosport, 0.3662 seconds off the top time.
The fastest Chevrolet came from Juncos Hollinger Racing, and it was Callum Ilott in fourth with a time 0.4181 seconds slower than Ericsson. Marcus Armstrong made it four Hondas in the top five, only five-thousandths of a second slower than Ilott.
Will Power was the fastest Team Penske driver in sixth, and Power led a powerful back half of the top ten at the test. Álex Palou, Scott McLaughlin, then-Arrow McLaren driver Felix Rosenqvist, and Scott Dixon rounded out the top ten as 0.5539 seconds covered the top ten.
Josef Newgarden was just outside the top ten in 12th with Alexander Rossi, Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta following the driver who won the 2024 season opener at St. Petersburg. Patricio O'Ward was down in 16th, 0.7263 seconds slower than Ericsson.
While Lundgaard was second at the 2023 preseason test, RLLR's other two drivers were 20th (Jack Harvey) and 23rd (Graham Rahal). Neither Ed Carpenter Racing nor A.J. Foyt Racing put a car in the top twenty. Meyer Shank Racing was 11th (Simon Pagenaud) and 18th (Hélio Castroneves). Dale Coyne Racing had David Malukas in 17th, but Sting Ray Robb was 24th. Agustín Canapino ended 21st in his first official IndyCar test session.
Exhibition History
As stated above, this is the first time IndyCar has had a standalone exhibition race since 2008. That was the reunification season and due to the late-timing of the Indy Racing League and Champ Car coming together, only a handful of events could have been incorporated into the championship. Long Beach and Edmonton were the only races that counted to the championship. Edmonton was the only race with a full field of cars as Long Beach was held the same weekend as Motegi, and featured only the Champ Car teams with the Panoz DP01 chassis while the IRL teams raced in Japan.
The third Champ Car event that took place in 2008 was Surfers Paradise, as IndyCar chose to honor the contract for the event that dated back to 1991. The race was held on October 26, 2008, over a month and a half after the 2008 season finale was run at Chicagoland Speedway on September 8.
This will unofficially be the 44th time since 1946 an exhibition race has been held during an IndyCar season. During that time, event such as the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Race of Two World from Monza and Marlboro Challenge are just a few of the exhibition races to take place during that time frame.
With the Thermal Club race taking place on March 24, this will be the earliest exhibition race since 1946. The previous earliest was in March 31, 1946 when the Mike Benton Sweepstakes was held on the one-mile Lakewood Speedway just outside Atlanta.
Bobby Unser leads all drivers in exhibition race victories with seven, all of which were at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Jim Rathmann and Jimmy Bryan each won four exhibition races. Bryan won the 1955 and 1956 Indianapolis Sweepstakes held at the half-mile Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and he won the first two races of the 1956 Race of Two Worlds held on the Monza oval. Rathmann swept all three races of the 1957 Race of Two Worlds and won the 1959 USAC/FIA Formula Libre Race held at Daytona International Speedway. Rathmann had more victories in exhibition races than championship races in his IndyCar career, having won three times, including his famous victory in the 1960 Indianapolis 500.
Troy Ruttman also had more exhibition victories in his career than championship victories. Ruttman won the Indianapolis Sweepstakes from Williams Grove twice, 1950 and 1951, and he won the final race of the 1956 Race of Two Worlds.
The only other drivers with multiple exhibition race victories are Jimmy Davies, Jud Larson and Michael Andretti.
While this will be the first exhibition race since Ryan Briscoe won the 2008 Nikon Indy 300 from Surfers Paradise, there were non-championship races run in 2012 and 2013 at Iowa Speedway. In each of those two years, heat races were used to determine the starting grid for the Iowa IndyCar race.
In 2012, each of the three races were 30 laps in length, and the field was split over the three races based on practice speed. The top eight cars were put in the third heat race and determined the first four rows while the remaining cars were split between odd and even positions from practice and determined the odd and even positions from row five on down. In 2013, the Iowa heat races were extended to 50 laps and the winners of the first two races transferred in to the final race to set the top ten positions.
Graham Rahal, Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti split the three races in 2012 while Scott Dixon, Rahal and Hélio Castroneves split the three races in 2013.
Fast Facts
Five IndyCar races have taken place on March 24. The last two IndyCar races that have taken place on March 24 produced first-time winners. James Hinchcliffe's first career victory came on March 24, 2013 at St. Petersburg. Colton Herta's first career victory came on March 24, 2019 at Circuit of the Americas in Austin.
This March 24 will be the 77th birthday for Roger Mears, and the 64th birthday for Scott Pruett.
Five drivers have won an exhibition race in IndyCar but never won a championship race (Jimmy Wilburn, Duane Carter, Ed Elisian, Jackie Stewart and Ted Foltz).
Wilburn won the first exhibition race held on March 31, 1946 at Lakewood Speedway. That race was two months prior to Wilburn's one and only official IndyCar start. He ran the 1946 Indianapolis 500 in an Alfa Romeo and retired after 52 laps due to an engine failure. Wilburn did run 35 laps in relief for Harry McQuinn in that race in a car that was classified in 13th.
Carter's best IndyCar finish was second in the 1953 season finale at the Arizona State Fairgrounds, over three years after Carter won the MGM Sweepstakes, an exhibition race held at Arlington Downs Speedway in Texas.
Elisian's best finish was third at Langhorne in 1959, over three years after he won an exhibition race held at Dayton Speedway.
Stewart made only two starts in his Indycar career, sixth in the 1966 Indianapolis 500 and 18th in the 1967 Indianaplis 500. Stewart won at Fuji Speedway on October 9, 1966 ahead of Bobby Unser.
Foltz only ever competed at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. He made seven championship starts at Pikes Peak and eight non-championship appearances. He was second when the race counted toward the championship in three consecutive seasons, 1967-69, finishing behind Wes Vandervoort, Bobby Unser and Mario Andretti respectively. Foltz won the 1970 edition, the final year Pikes Peak was a non-championship round.
Scott Dixon, Graham Rahal and Will Power are the only drivers remaining from the 2008 Surfers Paradise race still competing full-time in IndyCar.
When including the Iowa heat races from 2012 and 2013, the only other active full-time driver that competed in those along with Dixon, Rahal and Power is Josef Newgarden.
Team Penske and McLaren are the only active teams to have won an exhibition IndyCar race.
McLaren won the 1975 World Series of Auto Racing event at Trenton with Johnny Rutherford.
The World Series of Auto Racing was a four-legged event that began on October 19-20, 1974 with a sprint car and midget car race on Pocono Raceway's 3/4-mile oval with an IndyCar race and USAC Stock Car race concluding the series on April 25, 1975. Each race paid points to the top seven finishers (9-6-5-4-3-2-1).
Twelve drivers were invited to participate in the World Series of Auto Racing (A.J. Foyt, Billy Vukovich, Jimmy Caruthers, Pancho Carter, Bobby Unser, Jim McElreath, Johnny Parsons, Johnny Rutherford, Roger McCluskey, Wally Dallenbach, Steve Krisiloff and Lloyd Ruby).
A.J. Foyt and Pancho Carter split the sprint car race and midget car race respectively at Pocono. Foyt won the stock car. Ruby and Dallenbach did not run the stock car race. For the IndyCar race, Gordon Johncock, Tom Sneva, John Martin and Dick Simon replaced Carter, Caruthers, Ruby and Unser).
Foyt won the series with 24 points after finishing fourth in the IndyCar race. Rutherford was second on 14 points while Carter and Unser finished tied for third on 12 points.
The only driver to have won an exhibition race and the Indianapolis 500 in the same season was Rodger Ward in 1959. Ward won the Indianapolis Sweepstakes at Williams Grove about six weeks after his first Indianapolis 500 victory.
Five times has a driver won an exhibition race and the championship in the same season (Jimmy Bryan 1956-57, Rodger Ward 1959, Bobby Rahal 1987, Michael Andretti 1991).
Predictions
Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin, Álex Palou, Scott Dixon, Patricio O'Ward, Marcus Ericsson, Colton Herta, Kyle Kirkwood, Callum Ilott, Christian Lundgaard and Romain Grosjean will be the 12 drivers that make the main event. None of the drivers that start outside the top eight in either heat race make the main event. There will be fewer than three combined lead changes between the heat races and main event. The gap between sixth and seventh in each heat race will be greater than a second. Alexander Rossi will give an interview where he is clearly indifferent to everything that is going on. As for a winner? Scott McLaughlin. Sleeper: Callum Ilott.
