Source: Chris Jones/Penske Entertainment / other
THERMAL, Calif. — This weekend will be a unique one for the NTT IndyCar Series as their date at the Thermal Club amounts to an All-Star Race for the series, but the weekend appears to be about more than just a team coming away with a big wad of cash.
Starting with the basics, the weekend is essentially a made-for-TV exhibition event since the Thermal Club is a private club for auto racing enthusiasts in California.
There are members of the club who pay annual dues like what you might see at a typical country club (just thousands of dollars more). The club is a place for paying members to learn how to race on several different track layouts. People also live on the club’s property with close to 100 homes.
The racing will see normal race qualifying on Saturday with three rounds and eliminations you normally see. However, drivers will be qualifying for two heat races that will be run on Sunday. The top six in each of those races will then duke it out in a 20-lap feature race in which the winner will come away with $500,000 of a $1 Million purse.
“I think we’re all super excited. After last year, everybody got a taste of what INDYCAR racing is really about,” said Don Cusick, who is a co-entrant in the Indy 500 with Dreyer & Reinbold and a prominent member of the Thermal Club.
“We are really happy to hear you guys are coming back,” he said to IndyCar drivers and dignitaries. “The excitement has been building. Here we are. Yeah, we’re ready for you.”
No season points will be awarded for the event so it has no impact on the make up of the rest of the IndyCar season. The event also fills a glaring gap that IndyCar has dealt with over the last few seasons in which drivers and teams have had to take a month-and-a-half between the season’s first and second races.
During a press conference on Tuesday, the feeling among Thermal Club leaders and IndyCar leaders was that the weekend is a chance to rub elbows with potential new partners that the series and its teams can capitalize on.
“It lets them know that the teams are accessible, the drivers are accessible, and it’s a pretty cool sport,” Cusick said. “Yeah, I think it’s tremendously important that the members get to interact with the teams.”
“I think it’s going to be a fabulous experience for the members, and we’ll see how it pays dividends in the future,” Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles added.
Cusick said after IndyCar’s pre-season test at Thermal in 2023 his team picked up several new sponsors that helped them form their entry for the Indianapolis 500 with Dreyer & Reinbold.
Miles is optimistic that the exhibition event could have the word “exhibition” removed in the near future and have it be a points race. He said it depends on how the event shakes out this year.
As mentioned before, the race is made-for-TV, meaning no fans or non-members of the Thermal Club will be allowed to come in and watch the racing in person.
“We really have to do some thinking about that,” Miles said of the possibility of fans being allowed in in the future. “The club wasn’t built for, pick a number, 20,000 spectators at an event. What we do know is that the paddock, the teams, and the drivers love it, so I think there will be interest in being there.”
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IndyCar Prepared For Unique All-Star Weekend At Thermal Club was originally published on wibc.com
