Q: Did I watch a race, or did I watch a two-hour sales pitch for the Thermal Club hosted by Leigh Diffey and Townsend Bell (The Duke)? I believe it was more of a sales pitch because it wasn’t much of a race.
I don’t even think the four test sessions did not add much value for the teams because they were using last year’s tire, which is totally different from this year’s tire.
I don’t know how IndyCar is going to correct their course, but it seems that as an organization they make a lot of missteps. This is the time for IndyCar to strike against F1 as their ratings are dropping in the U.S. I don’t think the Penske organization is up to the task.
I will offer a few suggestions that may help:
• Drop the fake and gimmicky hybrid.
• Keep the new reduced weight.
• Task Firestone with bringing compounds to the track that have marked differences between primary and soft tires.
• Stop closing the pits for yellow flags unless the hazard directly involves pit road, pit in or pit out. Do a better job of trying to reduce time in clearing track under yellow and returning to green maybe opening pits will help in this area.
• Double the amount of track sweepers and work on clearing tire clag during yellows, but as soon as hazard that caused yellow is cleared, remove sweepers and return to green ASAP.
• Set race distances so that fuel save strategies will only come into play based on yellow flags, not on actual stated race distance.
• Finally, something that I think every IndyCar fan could agree on: more consistency from the race stewards. Race control should interact with the broadcast team and explain what the issue is that they are ruling on, and the penalty. This openness could cause penalties to be more equally enforced.
Mattymatt
MP: Another creative director candidate!
Q: A lot of racing events are available only through streaming services. How long until IndyCars, NASCAR and Formula 1 are only available through streaming?
Pete Pfankuch, Wisconsin
MP: 2029.
Q: I am behind the curve over the race ownership. Please advise what is actually up for sale.
Is it 50% of the race contract which finishes end 2028? So then it’s up to the City Council to decide what series races there from 2029? Am I missing a layer of ownership?
Oliver Wells
MP: Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven’s estate own the right to hold the Long Beach event, like Liberty Media owns the right to hold F1 races.
Q: Has there been any information released on the viewership for the Thermal race(s)? I can’t imagine it was great, going up against the first weekend of March Madness.
If IndyCar wants to have a non-points showcase type of race to bridge the six-week gap in the current schedule, I think they’re going about it the wrong way. The Dallara DW12 is a pretty known quantity at this point. The big argument for watching IndyCar is the talent of the field. IndyCar could find a karting track, rent/buy 40 World Karting Championship karts, invite the series regulars, and add in some wild card invites. The event would cost way less money, and the discourse of full-time IndyCar drivers racing F1/F2/WEC drivers in equal machinery alone could power Reddit and this Mailbag for a month.
Granted nobody watches the Race of Champions, but there’s no way that event would be more boring than the Thermal race.
Will From Indy
MP: The published number I saw was 816,000 viewers. For the sake of comparison, St. Petersburg in 2023 had 1,189,000, and Texas, which Thermal replaced, had 830,000, all on NBC. The one that will be interesting to keep an eye on is Long Beach, which moves from NBC to USA Network. On NBC, last April’s race delivered 1,026,000 viewers. We can only hope the shift from network to cable for IndyCar’s second-biggest race won’t cause a big ratings dive.
Q: I noticed last weekend that the teams are now plugging in their data cables to the sidepods. Previously, this connection was inside the cockpit. When was this change made? I was at St. Pete and did not notice the change. It’s something I always thought would be a good idea, and now it has happened.
Craig
MP: That changed during the offseason. This spares a crew member from having to dig around at the bottom of the fish bowl — hanging their arm over the top of the aeroscreen — to try and connect the data and power umbilical to the car.
Q: I don’t want to completely deride IndyCar for doing something different and “outside the box,”which is what they attempted with Thermal Club.
But it just didn’t work. It looked like a lot of hype for an event that provided very little action or excitement, and played out for a very small audience of the monied elite. To myself (and from the reactions I’ve read, a lot of others agree with me), IndyCar did itself a great disservice with this event.
From my perspective, IndyCar needs to establish a major road course event to go along with the Indy 500, and I think that a 500-kilometer event at Road America is just the ticket. The crowds that currently attend at RA are massive, but can you imagine if you market it as the road course event with huge prestige, and make the purse for that race reflect the special nature of the event?
The facility would be overflowing, and the racing would be amazing, especially with full card of support races to go along with it.
The ticket prices would be more expensive, but no one would flinch because of the incredible value for money, especially at the best road course in North America. IMSA is missing the boat by not having an endurance race here, so why not make it the road course endurance race for IndyCar?
Paul Oke
MP: I’m for anything that makes more out of our annual visit to Elkhart Lake.