Watching the days count down until the NTT IndyCar Series’ inaugural $1 Million Challenge at the Thermal Club on Sunday (March 24), it seemed only natural to explore previous exhibition races in IndyCar’s history. After all, the $1 Million Challenge is just that, an exhibition. No points will be paid, no impact will be made on the championship, it’s a race for nothing but cash and bragging rights.
Currently, the NASCAR Cup Series holds two exhibitions each year: the Busch Clash which comes a few weeks before the season-opening Daytona 500, and the All-Star Race, a week before the Coca-Cola 600. Decades ago, there were so many non-championship F1 races that we could do an hour long episode of The Pit Straight on them and still not be confident that we explored every one. Certainly working through this on the IndyCar side was going to take some work…
Nope.
Part of the difficulty here is IndyCar’s nature as a name first and an organization second. INDYCAR, the corporation, governs the NTT IndyCar Series, and was founded in 1994, the first major business move in the Split. Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) sanctioned the sport referred to as IndyCar, Indy racing, etc, from 1979-1997, with the United States Auto Club (USAC) sanctioning the Indianapolis 500 almost entirely according to CART regulations.
That’s the history going back only until the 1980s, at which point things get even more nuanced. For the sake of efficiency, let’s limit our scope from 1982 to the present day. In that time we come across one race, the 2008 Nikon Indy 300 held in Surfer’s Paradise, Australia. This event paid no points as it was run after the official ending of the IndyCar season, being contested as a Champ Car World Series (successor to CART) event until 2007. Though this race paid no points, it only qualifies as an exhibition in the most technical of senses.
Beyond that one exception, what stock of races does the search turn up?
Just one, it seems.
The Marlboro Challenge
Perhaps the only true all-star race in IndyCar’s history first took place in 1987, during the CART era, where my spirit has resided since 2015. The Marlboro Challenge was contested among 10 drivers (though 12 qualified for the first running) who met one of the following criteria: race and pole winners from the previous calendar year, the previous year’s champion, and the defending Indy 500 winner.
Bobby Rahal won the 1987 running ahead of
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