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Red Deer’s Parker Thompson fighting to keep Indy racing dream alive

Short on sponsorships and a week out from the start of the season, Thompson didn’t have a car to race
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Red Deer race car driver Parker Thompson won a pair of races in St. Petersburg, Florida earlier this month to start the Indy Pro 2000 season. (Photo Courtesy of Parker Thompson Racing)

Red Deer’s Parker Thompson is pounding the pavements in more ways than one these days.

Just two weeks ago, he earned a pair of victories, along with two poles and a track record at the first Indy Pro 2000 Grand Prix race of the season in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Only, the 21-year-old open wheel race car driver almost didn’t have a chance to race.

Thompson was without a car to drive this season on the Indy 2000 circuit, the mid-level of the three-tier road to the Indy development program.

After a second place finish last year on North America’s top open-wheel racing series, Thompson was struggling in the offseason to garner enough sponsorship to keep racing. On the junior series, it is mostly up to the driver, not the team to raise funds for the extra costs that go into racing.

“I rolled up my sleeves before St. Pete and I knew I was going to be up against a rock in a hard place. I know my situation and I don’t have a ton of money to go spend in sponsorship dollars,” he said.

“I’m not afraid of the workload to go raise it. I’ve got a month and a half now until the next race in order to keep up that end of the bargain.”

Just a week out from the race in Florida, Abel Motorsports approached the Red Deer driver with a vacant spot on their team. In spectacular fashion, Thompson earned his keep with the wins and a track record to boot.

“It’s been huge, just this week I’ve already signed on a couple new sponsors, which is awesome,” he said Monday in a phone interview.

“Winning is the end-all, be all. If you’re not winning, you’re not going to raise sponsorship. We’ve done the hard part, which is go out and win the races. Now we just need to make the dots connect on the financial side.”

The long-term future beyond his next race, the Grand Prix of Indianapolis on May 9 is uncertain. For now, Abel Motorsports will give him another shot to race the number 8 car and Thompson hopes he can make the most of that chance for a second time.

“They’ve expressed a lot of interest in me. They’re really helping out. They’re the only reason I can actually afford to race or could have raced in St. Pete. Moving forward they’ve committed to me, now that I’m leading the championship,” he said.

“They said if you can scratch together as much money as you can to come with us, we’ll hold the seat open and we’ll run you for a good cost. They’re my goal. I want to run with them. They’re a brand new team, but you couldn’t tell after two races in St. Pete, so I want to run with them the rest of the championship.”

Before the call came from Abel, Thompson wasn’t sure where he would race this year, only that he would most definitely compete somewhere, on some circuit.

He looked at other opportunities in sports racing throughout the offseason, so even without an Indy car to drive, he could still drive.

“I knew I’d be racing. I just didn’t know what. It wasn’t like I was slacking. I made sure my body and mind were ready to go win races,” he said.

Thompson still hopes that one day down the road he can race on the top IndyCar circuit.

“The three-year goal would be to win the Indy Pro championship and that would grant me about $800,000 to take to an Indy Lights Team and race there,” he said.

“I’m pretty confident if I got to race in Indy Lights what that scholarship, I could win that championship and I could be in Indy Car by 2021.”



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Red Deer race car driver Parker Thompson won a pair of races in St. Petersburg, Florida earlier this month to start the Indy Pro 2000 season. (Photo Courtesy of Parker Thompson Racing)


Byron Hackett

About the Author: Byron Hackett

Byron has been the sports reporter at the advocate since December of 2016. He likes to spend his time in cold hockey arenas accompanied by luke warm, watered down coffee.
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