The recipe for success in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda championship usually is this:
Be a sophomore driver. Join Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing. Win the championship.
After Nico Jamin (2015), Florian Latorre (2014) and Scott Hargrove (2013) have used that strategy to perfection the last three years, the next man - or kid - up seeking to extend that pipeline is Red Deer, Alberta’s Parker Thompson, who overachieved as a 17-year-old rookie on the single-car JDC Motorsports team in 2015.
In fact the last driver who wasn’t a sophomore at Cape to win the title was Matthew Brabham in 2012. But he still drove for Cape, and beat a sophomore in Spencer Pigot. Both are now IndyCar-bound for partial programs in 2016, thus proving the value of the Mazda Road to Indy.
Thompson finished fifth in points this season, behind the top four that included three sophomores and a fellow standout rookie in Anthony Martin.
Thompson now becomes an immediate title contender next season, and the question now isn’t if he’ll win his first race, but when he’ll do it.
I am extremely excited and proud to announce I have signed for @CMwithWTR for the 2016 @USF2000 championship! #MRTI pic.twitter.com/n8L39hQ39y
— Parker Thompson (@parkertracing) December 18, 2015
He’s mature beyond his years, too, as you’ll read in the “My Mazda Road to Indy” series.