Michael Epps is a 21-year-old driver in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda with PRL Motorsports (No. 30 entry). He will be driver blogging throughout the season for IndyCar.com, giving you a close, in-depth and often humorous look into the life of a professional race car driver attempting to make his way up to the IZOD IndyCar Series. 

Well here we are, my first blog on IndyCar.com. Where shall I start?

For those who don’t know of me yet, hi! I’m Michael Epps, I’m a complex mix of British and New Zealand nationality and I have been suffering from a severe addiction to racing since around 2005. I was born and bred in the UK. 

So the racing season came about faster than I expected, they always do I guess. For a driver the winters can seem longer than ever, then the month before the first race goes by quicker than a night’s sleep. I could probably fill two books with my experiences already since signing for the championship, but I’ll try my best to squeeze the good stuff into these paragraphs!

I ended on a high in Formula Renault last year in England. During the year I had slowly become more and more aware of the Mazda Road To Indy. Through Team USA scholarship drivers coming to race in the UK around me and a few meetings with a guy called Martyn of P1 Sports, I’d suddenly realized what a great opportunity the ladder offers.

Together we arranged a try-out with PRL Motorsports. It came about very quickly, two weeks later there I am wedged into a tiny seat on row forty-something of a 747 headed to Georgia for my first test with my Dad next to me, destined for nine hours of numb arse and stale airline food!

We arrived at a hotel late at night, met with the team the next day, went to the track and tested for two days. What an awesome experience. The car felt great, I impressed the team and we all had a great laugh while working together. I left with a real insight as to what could be ahead for me, and a big smile too.

We went back to England, I’d missed home and my family even after only five days away. How could I possibly cope for a whole racing season? I guess the thrill of driving around new streets, ovals and some of my favorite circuits would help. On those thoughts and many more, we decided to do it. I signed for PRL in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda.

I flew back to the U.S. on New Years Eve, this time without my Dad. I had a test planned at Sebring on January 2nd. St. Petersburg would be the wonderful place where I celebrated New Year with some people I met at my hotel…

Not long before the first races, we had our final test up in a fairly cold Alabama. My new Norwegian teammate Henrik Furuseth had signed and was there too. He’s a great teammate, we worked together well, pushed each other hard on track and had good fun while we were at it. After another positive test for both of us, we were just starting to pack up when this tiny little golden puppy wondered by the truck in the paddock. The poor thing was lost, limping and shivering. We took her into the main building and got the track owners to ask around neighbors to see if anyone owned her, no-one did.

I’d like to introduce my brilliant engineer now, John Walko. He drove the puppy all the way back up to Pennsylvania with him. The puppy is now called Tallie (after Talledega where we found her) and is looked after by his daughters and son. How nice is that?

We headed down to Sebring to get ready for the first race, it was all starting to happen quite quickly. My 21st birthday was on the day of the first test, talk about timing. I didn’t really get a chance to celebrate it properly and I still haven’t yet! That can wait till after St. Pete.

It was great to finally get out on track with everyone else in the practice sessions, I’d been longing to compare with others. Things didn’t go as well as planned for us as a team. I had a brake issue preventing me from setting up the car, and Henrik had a big clutch problem. We’d only managed to sort it by qualifying, so my car was quite far behind in setup. I did my best and qualified mid-field, but had many things to change with the car. Setup accuracy is hugely important at Sebring.

“Gentlemen, start your engines!”

Race one was here, and I had plenty to do from mid-field. I went roaring across the line ready to pass but I already had an issue. The floor of the car was bottoming out everywhere, it was really slowing me down around the faster corners. It was from then a case of defend my position and finish where I can, which was 15th. I really enjoyed it still, it’s a tough field this year and it made for some exciting challenges.

We found the bottoming out issue and made one more little change for race two. I started 17th this time so I really had to get down to it, which I did. I’d picked off a few already by the third lap, when a full course caution then came into play. We were following the safety car for nearly half the race, so I had even less time to make my way through. I nailed the restart and passed two cars around turn one, getting my head down I managed to take more place and defend it for the checkered flag to finish 11th. I was happy with that considering the caution, and my pace wasn’t really enough to get much further up anyway. We were still a bit behind with car setup.

It was a tough first meeting, but we as a team learnt our own lessons from it and racing was enjoyable and thrilling. I’ve had a great new experience over here so far in USF2000 and can’t wait to get out there in Saint Pete!

Ta for now.

Michael Epps