10 hours ago
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
Thermal Club owner says IndyCar won't return to the track in 2026
IndyCar will not return to The Thermal Club in 2026, according to Tim Rogers, the owner and founder of the exclusive private neighborhood in southern California that houses miles and miles of natural-terrain road course.
In a video posted to X on Wednesday, Rogers told Blake Arthur, a reporter for local TV station KESQ, that the major American open-wheel racing series would be absent from the track next year, but he held out hope for a 2027 return. "Their schedule is pretty well set (for 2026)," Rogers told KESQ. "And also, I need to make sure we get a title sponsor and be prepared ahead of time."
When reached for comment and asked to confirm the news, a spokesperson for Penske Entertainment told IndyStar, "We don't have any new updates to share on our 2026 schedule at the moment."
The loss of the The Thermal Club, which hosted a points-paying IndyCar race for the first time in March of this year and in 2024 hosted IndyCar's $1 Million Challenge exhibition event, is the latest signal of an announcement of the series' plans to add Mexico City to the 2026 schedule. In March, Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles told IndyStar that he "continues to be very bullish" regarding the opportunity for IndyCar to race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez -- the permanent Mexico City racetrack that has hosted annual stops for Formula 1 and Formula E, and which just a couple weeks ago hosted the NASCAR Cup series for the first time.
The Penske Entertainment executive added that he believed "we'll get it done and can be racing there in 2026," in the wake of the fallout of IndyCar's perceived lack of momentum to capitalize on the fandom of its young Mexican superstar driver, Pato O'Ward, and the fallout within and outside the IndyCar paddock last August after the news of NASCAR beating IndyCar to the punch for a Mexico City race.
According to the Associated Press, Miles wrote a letter last summer to the promoters of the track with proposed race dates for IndyCar at Mexico City for 2026-28, with April 12 listed as the primary choice for next year's potential race date. With the first couple stops on the IndyCar calendar in 2026 already ironed out -- St. Pete will kick off the season March 1, followed by the brand-new Arlington Grand Prix March 15, with the Grand Prix of Long Beach landing April 19 -- Mexico City's proposed landing spot would make for a four-week gap between the new race around the stadiums of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers and IndyCar's first international race not held in Toronto in more than a decade.
But paddock sources have told IndyStar it would be untenable for IndyCar to host a race either the weekend of Easter (April 5) or Palm Sunday (March 29), due to the country's widespread, devoted Catholic culture. Holding the new Mexico City race March 22 not only would butt it right up against Arlington -- not ideal for two new additions to the schedule the series would theoretically want to give space around in order to properly promote them -- but it would also overlap with IMSA's 12 Hours of Sebring, an endurance event several top IndyCar drivers typically target.
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Without Thermal, the addition of Mexico City would likely be the only race between Arlington and Long Beach, which currently has four consecutive off weekends. Even with Mexico City, IndyCar would face three consecutive off weekends, barring the unforeseen addition of a spring track in 2026 -- a lengthy gap for a sport that for years has had a momentum-killing lack of spring races on the calendar in the lead-up to the Month of May.
With the loss of Thermal, the planned addition of Arlington and expected one in Mexico City, IndyCar stands to drop another race or two among those with contracts expiring after this year, or host at least 18 races in 2026 -- a number the series hasn't seen since 2014 (18 races). Among races thought to be on the chopping block include one of the two on the Iowa Speedway weekend -- and event that since last year has lost its hook of multiple big-ticket concerts and still appears to be struggling to sell tickets -- as well as races at Portland International Raceway and Laguna Seca, both of which draw some of the smaller road course crowds on the calendar.
Penske Entertainment executives have long held that teams prefer a 17-race schedule, but that an 18-race one could be set if the right opportunity for an additional race were to present itself.
