To sum up- Alex Palou dominated both his heat and the feature race to win the $5000,000 prize at The Thermal Club Million Dollar Challenge. Other than a first turn crash involving Romain Grosjean and Rinus VeeKay in Heat 1, there was little passing.
In the second half of the main event, Alexander Rossi was the entire show with a wheel to wheel duel with Josef Newgarden, and Colton Herta had eyes on him as he worked his way to fourth after saving his tires in the first half of the final race.
Overall, today was a missed opportunity for Indycar to gain some fans in what would have been an off week on the schedule. There were some positives, and several negatives. If IndyCar wants to do something like this in 2025, a lot needs to improve.
Some Good Things
I’m glad IndyCar finally decided to try something new. It has been a long time since we have seen any kind of different weekend format. More about this in the next section.
I liked the eight minute qualifying rounds and that Push to Pass was available to the drivers during qualifying. I think these ideas should be explored to possibly become a part of qualifying in the regular season.
This event filled what would have been a six week gap between the St. Pete opener and Long Beach. There is still a four week gap between the first two races.
Felix Rosenqvist now knows he can win a race from the pole. The Swedish driver has never before led the first lap of a race where he started on the pole. He is an excellent qualifier, and I don’t think this will his last pole of the year.
It was wonderful to see the old aggressive Alexander Rossi on track again. His passes were the reason to stay tuned today. If his duel with Newgarden had happened in the Indianapolis 500, Indycar would be sitting pretty.
What Did Not Work
Whenever I hear a sports program is a made for TV event, I cringe. It usually means, as we saw Sunday, that it’s not about the sport, but something that looks like the sport. The aim is ususally to sell something other than the sport. That is what we saw.
What could have been a great opportunity to introduce Indycar to a national audience turned into a two hour infomercial for The Thermal Club, a playground for the wealthy.
Don’t get me wrong, it looks like a fabulous place, and if someone can afford it, good for them.
But I thought this was to be an Indycar showcase, just one race into the season. I didn’t see any promos of upcoming races or the Indianapolis 500. I learned more about The Thermal Club than I will ever need to know.
The racing was dull. Except for the intrigue of Herta’s tire strategy and Rossi’s charge through the field, there was not much to get excited about. This track is too long to provide the close racing action a sprint event like this deserves.
The post race ceremony was too similar to a regular season post race. For this event it should have been bigger. There should have been money cannons or a jar full of dollar bills or something for the second biggest non 500 purse in history.
Far an event with that much money at stake, the post race should have been more significant. Speaking of the money, the $23,000 participation prize probably didn’t cover a team’s expenses in going to this event for four days. It was definitely a losing proposition for the teams that had crash damage.
How to Do Better
These suggestions are just my opinion, but if Indycar decides to do something like this again. and I like the basic concept, just not execution, here are a few ways to make this better.
An event like this needs to be at a venue where fans can affordably attend. There was zero atmosphere at The Thermal Club. Any spectators were on balconies of the homes around the track. The race may have felt more excited if tv viewers could hear fans cheering for their favorite driver.
Hold an exhibition at a shorter track which has some good passing zones. This track was not made for Indycar racing.
If the purse is going to be as large as it was this weekend, pair each driver with a charity and pledge a matching amount of each drivers’ winnings to that charity. For that amount of money in a setting built for people who have had good fortune, I think this is the right thing to do.
The final segment of the main event should be longer. If there is to be a halftime break, put some content in it, perhaps a celebrity tire changing contest.
Allow more Push to Pass. Imagine what Rossi could have done if he hadn’t dun out of extra boost.
I would prefer no halftime break and a required full service pit stop within a designated pit window.
Increase the purse, especially for those who finish 6 -27. They are the teams that could probably benefit the most from winning a half million dollars.
Hold the event at a venue separate from a test and either pre season or post season.
This was a nice try, Indycar, but a missed opportunity to gain some traction.
The Pit Window by Mike Silver 