IndyCar, Thermal weighing options post-race for 2026 return

Senior executives from Penske Entertainment and The Thermal Club met on Saturday to determine how they’ll approach the possibility of having IndyCar return in 2026, and both parties agreed the best path forward was to reconvene after Sunday's 65-lap The Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix.

“Getting through the first race is what we decided to do,” Penske Corporation president Bud Denker told RACER. “But talks have been very good with everyone here.”

Thermal GM Nicholas Rhoades agreed, and said that if an extension comes to pass, the next IndyCar race at the private road course will likely have a different look.

“Waiting to get a direction on the future is what makes the most sense; we want to be able to look back at the entire event and how everything worked, and then start talking about what’s next, which could have a change,” Rhoades said.

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Using the current 3.067-mile, 17-turn layout, Thermal had limited options for where to place grandstands to accommodate the 5000 spectators who turned up for the track’s first professional motor race.

To welcome more fans, and treat them—along with the drivers—to a more dynamic event, Rhoades wants to delete some of the less compelling sections on the first half of the lap and make use of a different configuration that would introduce faster turns which would push the track out to 4.2 miles.

“There’s a whole extra part of the track we don’t use for the IndyCar layout that we would want to go to because there’s a lot more room to put grandstands, and there’s a lot of new houses being built out in that section,” he said.

“And the speeds would increase; they could see 180mph if we brought in some of the other configurations that are possible. I think people would love it.”