IndyCar to evaluate Thermal return after event

The $1 Million Challenge at The Thermal Club was a perfect concept to shorten the long six-week span between IndyCar’s first race of the season at St. Petersburg and its second in late April at Long Beach.

The series’ debut at Thermal in 2023 came as a pre-season testing event, and it’s been upgraded to an in-season test and non-championship race for money this year, so where does it go from here? Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles says it will be a topic of discussion once the final day of the $1 Million Challenge is run.

“You could list the things that we will take on board: How the drivers and the teams felt about it; how the racing turns out; the calendar going forward,” Miles told RACER. “Is there a whole there, and what's the optimal way to fill it? But really it’s the sum of the takeaways from the experience. We had a great experience last year and this is year two, and different. We'll see.”

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The Thermal Club is trying something new by allowing spectators into the private facility over the three-day IndyCar event. At $500 per ticket -- which is far more friendly than the $2000 the track initially charged -- and a cap on 2000 tickets made available to the public, fans that have spoken with RACER have been overwhelmingly positive on the experience, with many framing the per-day cost of $166.66, all-you-can eat food, and up-close access to the cars and drivers in a beautiful setting as being something wholly unique on the 18-event schedule.

Asked if Thermal has a chance of becoming a full points-paying race in the future, Miles spoke to the limited fan presence as an item to consider.

“I don't know if there's any scenario where they really could invite the public fans to buy tickets,” he said. “Maybe [the track] would have an answer on that, but that wasn't my impression last year. So that's something we'd have to get over, because if we did this, and there wouldn't be very many fans, it's more like a private event. And is it appropriate for us, with our fans, to have a quasi-private event with championship points?”