See how New Zealand’s new rising star is spending the off-season between his incredible Indy NXT campaigns.

 

I guess we’ll start with what have you been getting up to since the season wrapped up?

Actually, not a whole lot. So, I crashed in the last race and I got an injury on my hand, a stress fracture. So I haven’t really done anything for about three weeks in a row, and then last week I actually started doing stuff again. 

Should be healed up for the next season then? 

Yeah, it’s healing up quite a lot. Now that my body’s not trying to fix my hand and ligaments, now it’s actually starting to get better. I’m able to start getting up, doing stuff, working on some stuff for next year and seeing what we can put together. 

You made the move over to the US full time for Indy NXT last year. But you’ve also been really successful over here in Oceania based racing. How do you view the pathway for young Kiwi racers into that more global environment? 

The thing with America was it was actually kind of an accident. I never, growing up, really had any intention of racing in America. I never had any interest in single-seater racing either. And it just came about through winning the Tony Quinn Foundation shootout and then managing to do TRS, or FR Oceania, whatever they call it now, and do really well on that. And then they pretty much just gave me the opportunity to go and race overseas. And it was one of those ones you can’t turn down. 

Is it something that you’re a bit more focused on now, that American-based racing? 

Yeah. When I initially came over to America, I didn’t really like it. I wasn’t really too sure if I was going to enjoy it. As the first season went on, things were pretty tough. We had a couple of good results and then the second year, I’ve had a really good time. Made plenty of good friends over here. The racing culture is, everyone’s more friendly over here. There’s less politics. There’s less ‘he hit me, you hit me’. There’s less arguing.

Like we all rub each other up on the track and run each other off, but then we all live in the same building here in Indy. I would send Dennis Hauger a text and be like, “Yo, we’re going down to the pool in five minutes”, and five of us will just randomly show up. 

You’ve had some experience in a couple of different series. Notably, you won the Porsche Carrera Australian Cup and Formula Regional America in the same year. How did you find that difference between GT racing and open-wheel single-seater racing? 

That’s actually a good question because the Carrera Cup car is obviously very unique to drive. In the Porsche the engine is in the back and it’s quite heavy. But I actually found the FR Americas car very similar to drive to the Porsche Carrera Cup car because it’s quite heavy for a single seater. It’s about 800 kilos, where a modern F1 car or the Indy NXT car weighs 650 kilos. So that car’s kind of overweight for how much power it has, and it almost drives very similar to the Porsche. So when I made the step to Indy NXT, it was like 10+ seconds a lap faster than what I was used to. That was quite a big step up.

Is there anything other than winning the Tony Quinn shootout, that made the decision between choosing to go in the single seater direction rather than GT racing? 

It was actually my manager, I met Steve in about 2020-2021. This was when they did the New Zealand GP at Hampton and they had all the NZ guys. Shane [Van Ginsbergen] won it and all that. I met him there, then I went over to his house on Waiheke, and had a chat, I just wanted to make a career out of racing.

He pretty much just said to me, “Oh, you should just aim higher”. I didn’t really understand what he meant at the time, then as we got to know each other a bit more and racing started to go a bit better for me, [he] pretty much single handedly got me over to the States. Awesome. Nice. Good way to do it then. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Yeah. Good way, good way to do it then. 

I’ve been an Indy NXT watcher for a while, and moments such as your slide and recovery in St. Louis last year are some of the most memorable moments of your career as a viewer. Are there any performances such as that where you went, “Wow, this would really get a new watcher into the series if they haven’t seen it before”

In terms of my own performance or someone elses? 

Anything that you’ve done.

There was one race in TRS that we did. It was a wet race in Teratonga and we started. The track was dry and everyone started on wet tires because we didn’t have enough time to change them. I think I started seventh or eighth, and I managed to pass everyone and got to the lead. Then it bucketed down the lap I got to the lead and I’d managed to still hold the lead and win the race. That was probably one of my cool performances.

Anything from Indy NXT in the last couple of years you’d say was probably one of the best races you’d done?

Yeah, let me think. Well, to be honest, the one race that stands out to me is probably the last race that I ended up crashing in. The way that the track works is, to be able to pass people, you have to run a lot of downforce. So I ran the most downforce on the grid, like the most amount of wing angle. I started the race 15th, and it was a 65-lap race. We still had 35 to go, and I’d already gone from 15th to 7th. So, it was probably going to be my best race, and I just passed two cars in a row, and then some guy took me out and put me in the fence and that was the end of it. So that was going to be the standout race, cause I know for a fact that I was going to at least get on the podium in that one.

Well, lots of action there at least!

Yeah. Like if you go and watch the race, you’ll see me slowly climbing, slowly climbing. And I passed one, and then I passed another, and then he puts me in the fence. But there were 35 laps and I was thinking, “Oh, I’m coming here, I’m ready.” That’s that’s the one, that’s the one that got away. 

With so many Kiwis on the IndyCar grid, we’ve got three, now the Scotts and Marcus. It feels only right to ask you about your Kiwi motorsport heroes. Is there anyone that you’ve looked up to over your career or anyone who’s given you any good advice?

Yeah, so like growing up, I was always an Ayrton Senna fan. I don’t know why; it’s just the way he conducted himself, the way he drove, that always stood out to me. But then, if you look at Kiwi drivers when I was young — I was never really, I wasn’t an early, I was not a morning person— I never never watched much IndyCar racing, but I always watched the supercars.

I would always switch it on on a Friday afternoon, watch the practice session, watch the quali[fying] on Saturday, watch the race on Sunday. So I was always watching Scott McLaughlin from his Volvo days all the way into his Shell V-Power Racing days. And then, obviously, his switch over to IndyCar, and then coming over to America, and then actually getting to hang out and spend some time with Scott was pretty cool for me.

Any good advice you’ve gotten along the way? 

There’s been so much good advice, I don’t think I can remember it. There’s one guy from Australia, Bruce Jenkins. He helped me out a lot, just sort of focusing on one thing at a time. Like we could we could be thinking about the qualifying or the race before we’ve even gone onto the track and the practice. So just breaking it down into those smaller sections is something, — when you find yourself getting carried away — I can always go back to that and focus on doing the basics right. And the results come from that. 

We know superstitions can be a pretty big thing for a lot of drivers. Especially in your pre-race preparations, for example people getting in the car from a specific side, specific music before a Grand Prix. Are there any superstitions that you’d say you fall into during a race weekend?

Yeah, I’ve got a couple actually. I don’t get in the car on the same side every time, like I’m good with that. Sometimes if I’m really good in the practice, I’ll wear the same suit for the rest of the weekend, that there’ll be my fast suit for the weekend, and I always, always put eye drops in my contacts as the last thing I’d do before I put my helmet on. Every single time.

Yeah. I can imagine I have tried contacts. It always feels a little bit dry, so that must be kind of an important part too. 

I hate, I hate contacts with a passion, but there were a few times where you put them in, but then they go dry, and then like the contact will dry up and start flapping around in your eye. It sucks. It’s the worst experience ever. 

I suppose if you’re in the cockpit too, with a helmet on, it’s the last thing you want happening. 

Yeah, and you’re trying to like blink your eyes and put it back in on the straights. It just doesn’t work. So whenever I’m not driving, I never wear my contacts ’cause I hate them. 

You’ve been doing this a long time now. Back to that kind of advice thing, is there any advice you’d give younger you? 

Hmm, younger me, I don’t know. What I would tell younger me. To be honest I think I would probably just do exactly what I did. You know, let the people around you help develop you into a better driver, better person and just maximize every opportunity you get, because you don’t come around them very often and you want to make the most of them.

We’ve got one last one to end it up here, what’s one or two things that you’re really proud of either on or off the track that you don’t really get the chance to talk about in interviews such as this?

I’m a good cook. I can cook really well, like I cook most every day. I can cook some real good food. What else am I proud of? I don’t know. I’m not really like I don’t know. 

Cooking works! I feel like that’s not the typical skill set of everyone who goes off and travels the world. So it’s great that you’ve got that as your baseline. 

Yeah, I don’t know what else I would say from a personal side that I’m proud of. I’ve got no idea. 

It’s all right. We’re all 20-something Kiwis. No one knows how to cook.

Let’s be honest. I never finished High School, I never went to university, I drive, and that’s about it. I can cook. 

Anything that you wanted to add in particular or anything we haven’t asked that you think might be an important thing for people to know?

Nah, I’ve covered off all the people that sort of got me to where I am. Probably the last one I would mention is Giltrap Group. They support not only me but a lot of other people to get to this point. There’ve been a few people in the background that have got me where I am as well, but yeah, they know who they are. They’re not too fussed on getting all the wraps around it.

Thank you so much. This has been such a great little experience for us.

Yeah, it’s all good. We’re just normal people. We just drive cars!