The international nature of this year’s Mazda Road to Indy will be featured prominently this week as drivers from no fewer than 15 nations take part in the annual preseason Cooper Tires Winterfest at NOLA Motorsports Park, near New Orleans, La., and Barber Motorsports Park, near Birmingham, Ala. The Winterfest will hold special significance, since both venues also will host rounds of the “regular season” championships which begin on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., on March 28/29.
All three levels of the Mazda Road to Indy – the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda, the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires and Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires – which collectively offer opportunities for drivers to progress all the way from the grassroots of the sport to the Verizon IndyCar Series via scholarship packages at every level, will be in action.
The Indy Lights teams will have two days of testing, totaling 10 hours of track time, at each venue, beginning at NOLA on Wednesday, February 18, before moving to Barber Motorsports Park on Tuesday, February 24. Contestants in Pro Mazda and USF2000, meanwhile, will contest three races at each track, beginning at NOLA on Thursday, February 19, and then switching over to Barber the following Wednesday, February 25, competing for an enhanced prize fund totaling $50,000 and early bragging rights.
Harvey, Chilton, Pigot and Kaiser Headline 12-Car Indy Lights Entry
A dozen Indy Lights cars are entered for the Winterfest proceedings, with Jack Harvey, Max Chilton and Spencer Pigot among the contenders seeking to make their presence felt aboard the highly acclaimed new Mazda-powered Dallara IL-15 cars.
Harvey, 21, from Lincoln, England, tied on points with series champion Gabby Chaves during an impressive rookie campaign in 2014, losing out only on a tie-breaker of second-place finishes. The former British Formula 3 champion and GP3 Series front-runner will return this year with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports with Curb-Agajanian, which has won seven Indy Lights championships in the past and has every intention of adding an eighth in 2015.
Fellow Englishman Chilton, 23, has spent the past couple of years in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. He has joined forces with European powerhouse open-wheel squad Carlin to assist his former GP2 and F3 team in its U.S. preparations in Indy Lights with an eye towards the Verizon IndyCar Series in 2016.
Pigot, 21, from Orlando, Fla., won last year’s Pro Mazda title, along with a MAZDASPEED scholarship to progress one step farther up the ladder into Indy Lights with Juncos Racing. His teammate and fellow Pro Mazda graduate Kyle Kaiser, from Santa Clara, Calif., has paced the oval testing at Homestead and road course testing at Palm Beach International Raceway.
Other contenders who have shown good speed in recent testing include Dubai-based Briton Ed Jones, who set the fastest time for Carlin during a recent road course test at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida, Scott Hargrove (8Star Motorsports), from Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Shelby Blackstock (Andretti Autosport), from Nashville, Tenn., Scott Anderson (Schmidt Peterson) from Fort Collins, Colo., and Felix Serralles, from Ponce, Puerto Rico, who makes the move to Indy Lights from European F3 with defending champion team Belardi Auto Racing alongside series veteran Juan Piedrahita, from Bogota, Colombia.
Live Timing and Scoring will be available on the series’ website at http://indylights.com/results/live-timing.
Veterans Grist, Gutierrez and USF2000 Champ Latorre Among Pro Mazda Contenders
The 14-car field in Pro Mazda includes a stout mix of returning veterans and rookies. Garett Grist, from Grimsby, Ont., Canada, won twice as a rookie last year en route to eighth in the series standings and has joined reigning champion team Juncos Racing in search of the championship crown and a MAZDASPEED scholarship prize to graduate into Indy Lights for 2016. Grist will join talented young Mexican Jose Gutierrez, from Monterrey, who remains with the team after claiming his first victory in the final race of 2014 at Sonoma Raceway. Gutierrez has topped the timesheets in several recent test sessions.
Canadian Dalton Kellett, who earned one podium visit last year, will drive with 2013 champion team Andretti Autosport alongside Malaysian Weiron Tan, who claimed a double victory in the final rounds of the 2014 German Formula 3 Championship.
Michael Johnson, the only paralyzed racer on the Mazda Road to Indy, also will return for a second season with JDC MotorSports. The native of Flint, Mich., scored some promising results using his hand-controlled car.
Frenchman Florian Latorre will lead a strong rookie contingent, stepping up with the same team, Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing, which guided him to the USF2000 championship and a MAZDASPEED Driver Development Scholarship in 2014. Canadian David Burkett also will move up from USF2000 aboard a second Cape Motorsports entry.
Other Pro Mazda newcomers will include Briton Raoul Owens (JDC MotorSports), a graduate of European Formula Renault, and highly rated Tristan DeGrand, from Eureka, Mo., who claimed two F1600 championships in Canada last year and is now dipping his toes in the Mazda Road to Indy waters by taking part in the Barber Motorsports Park races with M1 Autosport.
Live Timing and Scoring for all sessions will be available at http://promazda.com/results/live-timing.
Eidson, Telitz, Franzoni, Agren Among Multi-National Entry for USF2000
An impressive list of 10 different nationalities will be represented among the 18 drivers entered for the fifth annual USF2000 Cooper Tires Winterfest.
Fellow Americans and Team USA Scholarship winners Jake Eidson, from Memphis, Tenn., and Aaron Telitz, from Rice Lake, Wis., head a strong roster of returning drivers. Eidson, who finished third in the 2014 title-chase, joins Pabst Racing for the Winterfest, while Telitz, who won last year at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis en route to Rookie of the Year honors and fourth in the overall standings, has joined four-time defending champion team Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing alongside Frenchman Nico Jamin, who finished ninth last year.
Brazilian Victor Franzoni (Afterburner Autosport) also is expected to challenge for honors after winning once in 2014 with three additional podium finishes and taking fifth in the final standings. Franzoni has topped five of six recent official series test sessions.
A gifted crop of rookies will include Australian F1600 race winners Jordan Lloyd and Anthony Martin aboard a pair of John Cummiskey Racing Van Diemen-Mazdas, and Canadian karting prodigy Parker Thompson (JDC MotorSports). Add in, too, a talented four-car lineup for series newcomer and former Pro Mazda championship-winning Team Pelfrey comprising F1600 Championship Series winner Ayla Agren, from Norway, Garth Rickards, from Mechanicsburg, Pa., Russian Nikita Lastochkin and Australian Luke Gabin, who earned his opportunity via a MAZDASPEED Scholarship after winning both the 2014 Skip Barber Racing Summer Series and the Skip Barber Championship Shootout.
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.
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