Welcome to the RACER Mailbag. Questions for any of RACER’s writers can be sent to mailbag@racer.com. We love hearing your comments and opinions, but letters that include a question are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm ET each Monday will be saved for the following week.
Q: First time question, long time RACER fan: IndyCar needs to differentiate itself from F1 and other racing to new fans. What is more different than an intimate Sunday with the world’s best racing fans at The Thermal Club!
Five thousand fans at Thermal Club, with incredible access to cars drivers and announcers, vs the embarrassing 5,000 (maybe) fans at TMS. It’s not exclusive, it’s available to an average race fan, with tickets at $475 for the weekend. This is very fair. I travel to Chicago Bears games and often pay much more per ticket for four hours of “entertainment.” I also pay that much for GPLB for full access (photo pass and a race day seat).
I’ll take Thermal. Don’t hide from the small crowd, promote it as an awesome close-up and amazing experience. It’s at a fantastic venue that we gearheads can only dream about. Find a non-racing celebrity to promote and be at the race. If Thermal would allow the access, show the crazy cool cars that “live” there and we only dream about. We all know only the rich can afford it, but that’s race cars, it is what it is. I’ve been to 86 open-wheel races, and am a big fan of the Indy 500 and the Milwaukee Mile, but oval racing looks terrible with empty stands. The background of mountains and palm trees looks good on TV. The small crowd is not that obvious and is part of this unique race.
Thoughts, Marshall?
Bob (lifetime race fan)
MARSHALL PRUETT: F1 is the most exclusive form of racing on the planet and features exorbitant costs to attend, so IndyCar is doing the opposite of differentiating itself from F1 by doing exactly what F1 does but minus the packed houses F1 gets at those crazy prices. So IndyCar ends up looking small and unimportant.
According to Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles in a call on Friday, Thermal had “3000-ish fans.” To the person tuning in to watch who doesn’t visit RACER.com every day to digest every piece of IndyCar news, all they’d see is a bunch of cars and nobody there to watch them. Not sure how to spin that as a positive. Don’t get me wrong; the place is amazing and I’ve enjoyed every visit since the first for preseason testing in 2023. But if I focus on what’s best for IndyCar while it’s trying to become bigger and more known, holding races in the middle of nowhere with a tiny crowd just ain’t it.
Fix that by at least getting 10,000-15,000 people there to fill some grandstands, and it becomes viable.
If an IndyCar drives by and nobody’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? Jake Galstad/Lumen
Q: I’m a longtime IndyCar fan – old enough to remember the heady days of CART, which probably peaked around when Nigel Mansell came to town.
I’m wondering if it’s just me or is something missing this season? Is there a decline in the star power of the current crop of drivers? I’m a 35+ year fan and even I don’t know squat about half the field this year. Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s some serious talent currently racing, but if I were to walk into a bar and start talking about the amazing IndyCar Series, who would the average person recognize? Scott Dixon? Will Power? “Maybe” to both, am I right? Of course there’s some others like Josef Newgarden, Pato O’Ward and Colton Herta just to name a few, but I’m pretty sure I’d get blinky eyes of non-recognition in return here in Australia.
In my humble opinion, IndyCar and FOX would be wise to get on the horn ASAP to get any of the old legends like Paul Tracy, Dario Franchitti, Mario (it doesn’t help that Michael has gone AWOL), Al Unser Jr., Helio, Robby Gordon… heck even Colton’s dad and Tony Kanaan are there every weekend and would have great perspectives, no?
Jason Mulveny, aka Bananaspeed, Sydney, Australia
MP: First question I’d ask is what’s different about this year? Palou, Herta, Power, Dixon, O’Ward, Newgarden, etc., have all been the marquee drivers for the last three or four years, and there’s nothing unique I can think of so far in 2025 that stands out as unique from last year, or the year before, etc. The same lack of CART-era star power is old news; Helio and Dario and Danica Patrick were the most recent drivers with big crossover appeal, but Danica left after 2011, Dario was forced to retire after 2013, and Helio’s been Indy-only since 2024.
But IndyCar also hasn’t had a TV partner that’s been as motivated as FOX to try and build today’s stars into bigger names, so are we going to poop on them for failing to fix decades of poor efforts by the series and its former broadcasters… after all of two races?
There’s also the generational item at hand. Almost everyone you mentioned as legends, except for Bryan Herta and Tony Kanaan who are actively involved today, have no relevance to those who either weren’t born or weren’t following when they were big deals. What would a 25-year-old IndyCar fan care to hear from Robby Gordon, whose last IndyCar start came when they were 4? Might be fun for those older fans, but is having old legends on the broadcasts going to move the needle? I just can’t see it.
Let’s give FOX some time to try and improve the situation before turning the presentations upside down.
