The prize fund for the 2020 Indianapolis 500 has been halved from its original figure, dropping from $15million to around $7.5m, with the event citing the lack of fans due to coronavirus as the major reason.
The 2020 Indy 500 will be the first under the ownership of Roger Penske, who completed the purchase of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar earlier this year.
He stated after taking over that the purse for IndyCar’s blue-ribband event would rise from just over $13m to $15m.
However, the Indy 500 has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
First the event was shunted back into August for the first time in its 104-year history.
Initially the speedway suggested it would run at 25% capacity of fans in the venue – somewhere around 70,000 – but that was cancelled last week when it was decided no fans would be allowed in.
A spike in coronavirus cases in Indianapolis was considered a major reason for the move, which followed the decision to postpone this weekend’s Mid-Ohio IndyCar double-header due to the pandemic.
“The Indianapolis 500 purse has been revised and will total more than $7.5m, with more than $1m being awarded to the race winner,” said a statement given to The Race by Indianapolis Motor Speedway, confirming the winner will receive around a million less than last year depending on what happens in the race.
“The purse was adjusted following consultation between IndyCar leadership and team management.”
The Race understands Penske told teams about the reduction earlier this week.
In the wake of the announcement that fans would not be allowed at what is one of the highest-attended single-day sporting events in the world, Graham Rahal posted a powerful video attempting to explain to fans that many of the industries associated with the Indy 500 may struggle to survive without the event.
“There’s a lot of pressure from a lot of different areas,” said Rahal in a subsequent media appearance with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team.
“Unfortunately at some point the decision had to be made.
“It absolutely is critical to run the race. Far and away it’s what makes and breaks our season as teams” :: Ed Carpenter
“As I said the other day in my comments, we have to run this race.
“No matter how you look at it, I want fans there as much as anybody. We thrive off that, we thrive off that atmosphere.
“But I can tell you right now there’s a lot of teams… trust me, I get the heat for it on social media when I say teams probably wouldn’t live without this race.
“I get all the fans saying, ‘I don’t care about the teams’. Fine, that’s great for you. But for us, we do.
“We care about the jobs that it provides, the cottage industries it provides in Indianapolis, everything else it does for our city, the economic impact.
“We have to have this race. At some point the call needed to be made.
“Some people said to delay till October.
“My personal opinion of that is you can’t.
“What if this doesn’t go away?
“In my opinion, it’s not going to. I just don’t see this disappearing anytime soon.
“You get till October, you delay further, then it’s snowing, the race doesn’t happen.
“[If] the race doesn’t happen, I can guarantee you United Rentals [Rahal’s sponsor] is not happy.
“We have to have this event, it’s really critical for our sport.”
Ed Carpenter – a three time polesitter at Indianapolis and part of his three-car eponymous team this year – echoed Rahal’s comments on how important it was to run the event, even with the implications of not having fans.
“It’s an awful situation to be in,” said Carpenter.
“I talked to someone about this back when Roger made the comments that we just won’t run the race without fans.
“I was asked a question if I would be open to doing it without fans.
“It’s something that I don’t want to have happen. I would love for our fanbase to be there.
“But it absolutely is critical to run the race.
“Far and away it’s what makes and breaks our season as teams.
“It’s the most important event to our partners.
“It 100% sucks not having fans there and not even being able to have the experience with our partners in full being there. But it’s necessary.
“It sucks that we had to be in this position.
“I feel terrible for Roger Penske right now.
“But he’s doing an outstanding job leading our series and doing his best to help our teams through this difficult situation we’re in.”
