Q: Credit to IndyCar for trying something different at Thermal. The track looked beautiful on TV. And hey, at least there were IndyCars racing!
Those were my thoughts up until the show actually started.
The heat races were fine. I kind of enjoyed seeing a rare mistake by Scott Dixon, but at least he owned up to it. Romain Grosjean asking who is going to pay for crash damage? Absolute gold, loved it.
Unfortunately, it became painfully obvious during the heats this was a terrible track for this type of event. Everyone got strung out ,and with the short race distance it was follow-the-leader because, well, no tire deg. At least they are hyping up the main event! It is 20 laps, so surely the tires will play a factor!
And hype it up NBC did. An all-out dash for the cash, as Diffey proclaimed!
And tire wear did play a factor! Oh wait, why is Herta driving so slow? Wait, now Canapino? Oh no…..
To hype up the main event as an “all-out dash for the cash” just for half the drivers to drive as slowly as possible for half the race was an embarrassment.
Let’s not forget the constant parade of, “Hey, look at all these lovely folks who have more money than God! Aren’t these $5 million houses just grand! We know at home you are being killed by stagnant wages and inflation; but there is a spa on the backstretch and look, a putting green!”
Let’s not forget the drivers shrugging their shoulders at the purse money. That was an insult, and made me less of a fan of those that did it. We are struggling out here in actual America and we choose to give what little free time and resources we have to this sport. For the drivers to literally say that the $500k is not that much…. Hey Palou, I’ll send over my banking info and you can wire that check over to me. It would change my family’s life. The least they could have done is pretended like they gave a crap. It was so painfully obvious through the whole broadcast they did not care about the money or the event. Those drivers should donate those checks to charity and IndyCar should issue an apology.
Call it an infomercial to sell some subdivision lots. Call it a desperate move to satisfy a TV contract. Call it groveling and schmoozing some ultra-wealthy to throw some dough towards your race series. Do not call it an All Star Race, Shootout, Million Dollar Challenge or whatever they claimed it was.
Tone-deaf, out-of-touch, borderline offensive. Par for the course for the NBC broadcasts and IndyCar.
My dad has gone to probably 40-50 IndyCar races and 20-30 500s. He has been a fan for 40 years, even supported both series during the Split. He turned to me at the end of the race and said, “That was uncomfortable.” Yes, Dad. Yes it was.
Is this the plan moving forward to fill the gap between St. Pete and Long Beach? If it is, then IndyCar, I beg of you, please just move St. Pete back a few weeks. Make it two weeks before Long Beach — I could not care less about date equity. I am just tired of being embarrassed to be a hardcore fan of this series, and I do not need the horrendous wealth gap in this country shoved down my throat any more than it already is.
DK
MP: This was a compromised year with the Olympics causing a big blackout during the summer, which led to the series and its tracks needing to move events to either side of the blackout, and despite being super flexible, Texas Motor Speedway chose not to play ball and the race fell off of the calendar between St. Pete and Long Beach.
I hear what you’re saying about most drivers being unmoved by the prize money that was offered, but some context is missing. If you have $20, are you going to fight to the end of the earth to win another $1 or $2? It’s possible, but most people won’t. Apply that to a decent amount of the drivers, and the peak amount available of $500,000 wasn’t going to lead to abnormal behavior to get it.
If it helps, which it probably won’t, I’d say the biggest difference from being a fan to being someone on the inside of a popular sport is the realization that for the vast majority of the stars, they’re just regular people with all of the same quirks and habits and tics as the rest of us. They just make a lot more money. Most, at least in IndyCar, don’t think of themselves as wealthy elites; they watch bad reality TV shows and have to clean dog poop and take their cars in for repairs and deal with fussy children who don’t want to school, etc.
They also aren’t monkeys who dance for our entertainment when a small amount of money — for those in the best teams who would have the strongest chances of making the final — is dangled in front of them, so I wouldn’t expect them to be fake and pretend racing for a nominal prize in their world is more than what it is.
Q: The Thermal Club event was not the greatest race I’ve ever seen, nor was it the worst. But since it had a touch of the flavor of American
short-track racing (heats and a feature), I think that, should a return
to Thermal be planned, it ought to embrace more of that flavor.
Two heats, just like this year. But invert the top six from qualifying. Had this been the case this year, instead of Rosenqvist and Palou starting up front, they each would have started sixth.
Take six from each heat, like this year. Then take the next six from each heat and run a 12-car LCQ and take the top four or six from that, to make a 16- or 18-car field for the main event. No invert for the “consi” lineup.
Line up the feature with the 12 from the heats in the first 12 spots,
but invert the top eight. Tag the consi qualifiers on the tail,
straight up.
Both the consi and expanded feature field give more cars not only an
additional opportunity to race, but also to display their sponsors on
the television broadcast — this is, essentially, a made-for-TV event.
As for the race distance for the main event, and any breaks or pit
stops, I’ll leave that to others to determine.
Since it’s a non-points event, I won’t accept any objection to the
inversions. The inversions will make it more interesting, and very well
could make for more passing. Deeply inverted lineups are the racing
with which I grew up, and I grew up watching the best champions come
from deep in the field.
Larno in Penna
MP: Your name has also been submitted for the vacant “Thermal Club $1,000,000 (-500,000) Challenge Creative Director” job title.