| Race Title: | INDYCAR Thermal Challenge |
| Series Long: | IndyCar Series |
| Series Short: | ICS |
| Location: | Thermal, California, U.S. |
| Coordinates: | 33.6014°N -116.1544°W |
| First Race: | 2024 |
| Distance: | 3.067miles |
| Laps: | 20 |
| Duration: | 61.34miles |
| Surface: | Asphalt |
| Length Mi: | 3.067 |
| Length Km: | 4.936 |
| Turns: | 17 |
| Record Year: | 2024 |
| Record Class: | IndyCar--> |
The NTT IndyCar Series has raced at Thermal, California since 2024.
In 2024, the $1 Million Challenge[1] was a non-championship exhibition auto racing event held by the IndyCar Series on the permanent road course at the Thermal Club in Thermal, California on March 24, 2024.[2] It was designed to be a "made-for-TV" all-star event and is held at a 300-plus-acre private country club in a gated community in the Coachella Valley.
INDYCAR announced the 2025 schedule, the race will become a full championship points race.
Championship car races have been held in Riverside County since 1967, when the Rex Mays 300 was held under United States Auto Club sanction from 1967-69 at Riverside International Raceway, which was located 72miles northwest of The Thermal Club. After the closure of Ontario Motor Speedway in 1980, Championship Auto Racing Teams moved the Ontario race to Riverside, where it was run as a 500 kilometer race from 1981 to 1983.
Over a decade before the first racing event, Thermal Club owner Tim Rogers hosted Randy Bernard, then the chief executive officer at Indy Racing League, LLC (then under Hulman & Co. ownership) at a ribbon cutting ceremony, and told The Indianapolis Star he had always wanted to host a race at the property.[3] Talks ramped up during the 2022 season about the club hosting IndyCar's preseason test in 2023, with the series in need of a consistent, warm-weather location for such testing. During the test, Marcus Armstrong praised the circuit and expressed a desire to have a race there, but some other drivers including Colton Herta and Callum Ilott expressed concerns regarding overtaking and the safety of using Armco barriers.[4]
Following this test, in September 2023, IndyCar announced that 2024's test would be concluded by the $1 Million Challenge non-points race.[5]
In October 2023, a limited number of two thousand tickets were made available at $2000 each.[6] In January 2024, IndyCar offered $500 tickets to the first one hundred IndyCar Nation members that claimed them.[7] On March 5, 2024, the Thermal Club cut all ticket prices to $500 and issued partial refunds to those who had purchased at the earlier price. The reason given was that the county club had given permission to allow more people into the facility.[8]
On June 13, 2024, with the announcement of the 2025 schedule as part of the new Fox Sports media deal, the race was promoted to a full points-paying race. It is scheduled for March 21-23, 2025, with practice and qualifying on Fox Sports 1, and the race on Fox broadcast network.[9] The club-grade pit lane, which forced INDYCAR to run a non-championship format with no live pit stops in 2024, is being expanded to meet or exceed INDYCAR's minimum 35feet pit box standard, and will carry a minimum of 30 cars.