It was a good weekend for Team Penske and it has drivers leading the NASCAR Cup Series and Supercars championship. NASCAR's Truck Series had its 600th race and everyone wants to beat Kyle Busch. Toyota continues to be handcuffed in LMP1, a class that had only three entries in Austin. The Asian Le Mans Series concluded in Buriram. Robbie Buhl and billionaire hedge fund manage Robert Citrone are working on an IndyCar team that will participate in the two Indianapolis races in May and May is the topic of discussion today. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Splitting a Larger Pie
A little over a week ago, Roger Penske made his first bit of news now that he is in charge of IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500: A cash infusion.
Along with a number of facility improvements to bathrooms and adding video boards, the Indianapolis 500 purse will see $2 million injected to the pool of money and, with a purse set at over $15 million, the 2020 Indianapolis 500 will have the largest purse in the 104th editions of the race.
The purse has been a constant topic for the Indianapolis 500 for quite some time. While the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar went through a low period during the split, and even in the years immediately after reunification, one idea to drum up more interest for the race was to increase the purse and make it something notable. Robin Miller has been saying for a long time the Indianapolis 500 winner should get $10 million and it should pay $1 million to start. There are plenty of things wrong with that. For starters, the purse would have to be at least tripled from what it will be in 2020.
While it is great for the Indianapolis 500 to see a purse increase, $2 million is not going to change a lot. That is not a lot of money and it is not going to get the purse much closer to Miller's dream. With $2 million it is not simple what to do with it. It is not enough that everyone will necessarily see an increase, and even if everyone does get a little more it will not be much more. It might help out a few teams and those teams are likely to be the ones already running at the front. If none of the money is going to the one-off teams than will it really make a difference?
There are a couple of ways this $2 million increase can be used:
The $2 million could be just added to what the race winner gets. If that $2 million is just going to be added to the race winner's total, than nothing has really changed. It is a great increase for the race winner but it has not lifted the payout for any of the finishers from second to 33rd.
The $2 million could be spread across the field. That sounds nice but that would only be an additional $60,606.06 deals to each finisher. The winner's cut would only go up to $2,730,135 and that would still only be the third largest winner's share in the history of the event but it would make sure every starter gets over $250,000 and that has not be a case for the last few years.
There could also be a complete shift in how the purse is distributed.
The Indianapolis 500 purse has been rather stagnant for the last 18 years. From 1982 to 2002, the purse went from just north of $2 million to over $10 million. From 2002 to 2007, the purse only went up $640,235. In 2008, the first Indianapolis 500 after reunification, the purse jumped to $14,406,580. It has not been higher since. That same year Scott Dixon became the first Indianapolis 500 to earn more than $2 million for victory when he took home $2,988,065.
Hélio Castroneves won the 2009 race and got $3,048,005 and 11 years later that is the only time the Indianapolis 500 winner has earned more than $3 million.
The last ten Indianapolis 500 winners all earned over $2 million but none of them earned more than Dixon or Castroneves in 2008 and 2009, and five of the winners last decade earned less than $2.5 million. The total pursed dipped to $12,020,065 in 2013 with Tony Kanaan only taking $2,353,355 as the race winner.
While we have seen salaries and winners' share go up in other sports, the Indianapolis 500 dipping in pay compared to 2009 does not look good when everyone else's pockets are getting deeper. It would look good for the Indianapolis 500 if the winner's cut took a big leap. Just adding the $2 million increase to the winner's share would accomplish that but there is a way the winner's share could get larger and see the payout floor increased by over 50%?
What if $5 million was set aside for the race winner and then split the remaining $10 million evenly over the other 32 entries? That means second to 32nd would each get $312,500. That would be great for the 13 entries that made less than $312,500 in the 2019 race. It would not be great for the 19 other entries that made more than $312,500 in 2019. It would be hard to justify 57% of the grid taking a pay decrease but an argument could be made it is for the greater good.
The race would have a tagline to sell. It would likely be the largest payout for a race winner in the world. I can't think of another race that pays $5 million to win. People care about the winner. No one really cares what second place makes. It would seem cruel to us on the inside who follow IndyCar regularly to know the runner-up was making over $400,000 less than what it paid the year before but future purse increases could be used to boast those positions in the top five and top ten.
The good news for IndyCar is it would have raised the floor and the ceiling simultaneously. The little guys would get richer and the richer would get richer. For one year, it would be a notable headline for the series, something to sell, hopefully something that would draw people in and be a marker of greater things to come for 2021 and onward.
Bringing this back to Earth, I do not think Roger Penske is looking to create a tagline. I do not think Roger Penske is going to cut the payout for 57% of the starters. I think Roger Penske is looking to boost the payout for all 33 starters on the grid. Perception is still important to Roger Penske and in year one of him in charge I think he will want to see the record for largest winner's share or at least get it back up to $3 million. From there, the remaining $12 million will be divided to make sure the 2020 runner-up gets more than the 2019 runner-up and the same is true for every position through 33rd.
Penske is a businessman and he knows if everyone is making more money everyone is going to be happy.
Champions From the Weekend
The #26 G-Drive Racing Aurus-Gibson of James French, Romain Rusinov and Léonard Hoogenboom clinched the Asian Le Mans Series LMP2 championship with a runner-up finish at Buriram.
The #2 Nielsen Racing Norma-Nissan of Colin Noble and Anthony Wells clinched the Asian Le Mans Series LMP3 championship with a runner-up finish at Buriram.
The #27 HubAuto Corsa Ferrari of Marcos Gomes, Tim Slade and Liam Talbot clinched the Asian Le Mans Series GT championship with a victory at Buriram.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about HubAuto Corsa but did you know...
The #45 Thunderhead Carlin Dallara-Gibson of Ben Barnicoat, Harry Tincknell and Jack Manchester won the 4 Hours of Buriram, the team's second consecutive victory. The #12 ACE1 Villorba Corse Ligier-Nissan of Alessandro Bressan, David Fumanelli and Gabriele Lancieri won in LMP3.
The #1 Rebellion R13 of Gustavo Menezes, Norman Nato and Bruno Senna won the FIA World Endurance Championship's Lone Star Le Mans from Austin, the team's second victory of the season. The #22 United Autosport Oreca-Gibson of Filipe Albuquerque, Philip Hanson and Paul di Resta won in the LMP2 class, the team's second consecutive victory. The #95 Aston Martin of Marco Sørenson and Nikki Thiim won in the GTE-Pro class, the team's second consecutive victory. It should be noted the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi had its Shanghai victory reinstated. The #90 TF Sport Aston Martin of Jonathan Adam, Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluç won in the GTE-Am class, the team's third victory of the season.
Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup race from Las Vegas. Chase Briscoe won the Grand National Series race. Kyle Busch won the Truck race.
Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin split the Supercars races from Adelaide.
Eli Tomac won the Supercross Triple Crown race from Arlington with finishes of fifth, first and first. Ken Roczen won the first race of the night.
Coming Up This Weekend
World Superbike opens its season at Phillip Island.
Supercross will be in Atlanta.
Formula E is back in Marrakesh.
NASCAR will be at Fontana.
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