Roger Penske rescues title hopes of junior IndyCar hotshot Myles Rowe

Indycar Racing News

IndyCar series boss Roger Penske has ensured young black driver Myles Rowe's season by funding him for the rest of 2022

Myles Rowe USF2000 IndyCar junior driver

The remainder of Rowe's 2022 season has been ensured by Penske

Myles Rowe

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IndyCar owner and eponymous team boss Roger Penske has come to the rescue of young American hotshot Myles Rowe by funding the rest of his racing season.

Rowe, who has been one of the standout performers in the IndyCar junior series USF2000 this year, went into last weekend’s Indianapolis event faced with the prospect of leading the championship but without the budget to carry on the season any further.

The Atlanta-native had set up a crowdfunding page in a bid to fund his racing year, which Penske was already believed to have donated $200,000 to, and now the motor sport legend has picked up the rest of the fee needed for Rowe to finish the season with his Pabst team.

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“He’s done a good job and I sat down with he and Pabst and told them I’d commit to continue through the end of the season, so we’re in good shape,” Penske said to RACER yesterday.

“We’ve got a plan, and if he gets to where we’d like him to get to, there could be an option for next year. So we’re on it, for sure.”

21-year-old Rowe became first black person to win an IndyCar-sanctioned event in the USF2000 series last year, driving for the Penske-funded Force Indy team under its ‘Race for Equality and Change’ programme.

He was then dropped as the team moved up to the Indy Lights series, forcing Rowe to compete this year with Pabst on a race by race basis with his crowdfunded budget.

“It was less pressure and more just stressful – you know how racing is, it can go any way,” he told Motor Sport on the strains of racing this way last week. “Every session is like: “I just need to get through this.’

“It sucks – weekend to weekend, you know your career could be done.”