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The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has announced plans to hold its first fully-autonomous car race on October 23, 2021.
The event will be open to university teams who will build their own self-driving vehicle using the same Dallara race car that competes in the Indy Lights series.
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Teams will have to make it through several rounds of approval that start next year which include submitting white papers, building autonomous go-karts and performing well in a simulator.
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Final qualifying for the race will require completing a 10-lap, 25-mile run of the speedway in less than 15 minutes, with at least one lap averaging 120 mph. To put that into perspective, the qualifying speed at this year’s Indy Lights Freedom 100 was 194 mph.
The race itself will be head to head and cover 20 laps. If the winning team completes the race in under 20 minutes, they’ll take home a $1 million purse, while the second and third place cars meeting that standard will win $250,000 and $50,000.