An honest Assessment of Indycar's $1 Million challenge at the Thermal club

I'm not a consistent viewer of Indycar, ive probably watched about 10 indycar races in the last few years. 2021 was the first time I really checked it out. That season Jimmie Johnson was racing once his NASCAR career was over at least that was until he made a part time comeback a few years later, also Romain Grosjean was now in Indycar over from racing in formula 1. Both these drivers got me into watching a few races. Over the next few years I would watch a few races, big events and new tracks. Nashville in 2021, The new Detroit track in 2023 and of course the Indy 500. So naturally I was interested in the new event, the $1 Million challenge at the Thermal club. A non points race for $1 million or so it seemed, the winner got $500 thousand instead, of course that's not bad money but to market it as a million dollar challenge but have that be the total prize pool for the top 5 is a weird choice. I thought it would be like NASCAR's all star race, the winner gets $1 million everyone else gets nothing. 

The first issue is the marketing, the hype for this event seemed non existent, I'm in a lot of racing circles on social media whether that's X (Twitter), Reddit or Instagram. Most of my feed is racing, granted it is mostly NASCAR and Formula 1 but it's still racing, I see other forums of motorsport besides those series all the time. This event had no one talking, now im not saying its should be on levels of last year's events for NASCAR like the return to North Wilkesboro or the first Street race in both Xfinity and Cup series history nor should it be on the same level as Formula 1 racing in Las Vegas which was everywhere in the lead up to the event Ads ran on ESPN, Magazines previewing the race were available in grocery stores and it was even a trivia question that week leading into the event. Indycar doesn't have the same pull as NASCAR and F1 and that's ok, but not 1 ad even on X or Instagram. I almost missed the event, it just popped in my head a few days ago and I looked it up. I even follow indycar on X and saw nothing about it until the day of the race. It's pretty embarrassing for a series like Indycar, they should be trying everything to pull in fans especially as both NASCAR and Formula 1 have been growing in the past few years, every NASCAR race has been up in viewership in 2024 so far compared to last season besides the Daytona 500 which was run on a monday and Formula 1 even with a drop in viewership in 2023 and starting 2024 down due to 2 races on saturday and a race at 12AM its still more popular in america pre 2019. Indycar should be trying to get in on the resurgence of motorsport in the mainstream in America instead of whatever the strategy is now.       

Now let's talk about the track in general. The Thermal club is an expensive club, costing between $2.5 - $5 million to either buy a house or build a house near the track + a $1,200 per month membership fee and a 1 time $175,000 initiation fee. Of course the area is amazing, who wouldn't want to own a house with a racetrack in your backyard. The issue is that this track doesn't seem the best for racing, it's not really built with that in mind. It's a place for rich people to drive their Ferrari or Mclaren for some fun. Sure you might get some racing between members and sure it is a FIA grade 2 track but it's still not meant for a top motorsport series to race at. It was weird to see a track with no grandstands and not really any fans visible besides the people on their decks and balconies. You could attend for $500. I'm not sure where you could watch the race from though

Finally the racing itself. The event was 2 heats each 10 laps or 20 minutes, caution laps didn't count but the timer of 20 minutes kept going. This seemed like a weird thing to me. Why have both options? In the first heat Felix Rosenqvist led all 8 laps from pole, the only real action of the whole day was Scott Dixon sending Romain Grosjean spinning into Rinus VeeKay. Grosjean and VeeKay were out from damage and Dixon was effectively out with a drive through penalty which put him last in Heat 1. Heat 2 Alex Palou led all 10 laps from pole, well the Mclaren drivers all battled for 6th, the last spot in the heat to transfer into the main event. In the main race a challenge from Colton Herta was coming, he used strategy to work his way through the field, the race was 2 10 lap sprints with no tire changing so the first 10 laps Herta drove slow to save his tires for the last 10 laps. Once the second race restarted Herta was on less worn tires and was able to drive from 10th to 5th in 10 laps. Up front thought  it was all about the 2023 Champion Alex Palou, he dominated leading all 20 laps and winning the $500,000 with minimal challenge. 

Overall I thought the race was ok. It wasn't really that exciting of an event, it didn't seem like something that would have been disappointing to miss. The track lacked elevation and character, both key things when making a road course. Again I'm sure it's fun for club members to drive but as a viewer on TV, no. As I said in X during the race "Yeah I’m not sure about this Indycar race…"