In just over a week Beachburg, Ontario, native Nathan Blok will be back behind the wheel of the John Cummiskey Racing (JCR) car No. 33 at Ontario’s most prestigious open-wheel racing event of the year. The annual Toronto Indy returns to the tight street-course at Exhibition Place on the shores of Lake Ontario.

The Mazda Road to Indy continues to expand its outreach to the grassroots levels of the sport with today’s announcement that Andersen Promotions has formed an alliance with the Australia Formula Ford Association Inc. (FFA) with immediate effect which will see the representative body for Formula Ford racing in that country become an Official Partner of the ladder series through 2016. The first level of the highly acclaimed Mazda Road to Indy – the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda – will be promoted as an endorsed progression path for Australian drivers pursuing international careers in motorsports.

The Mazda Road to Indy – the most successful driver development program in the world – is now further engrained in the grassroots level of the sport following today’s announcement that Andersen Promotions has formed a partnership with MAXSpeed Group, the United States distributor of the Rotax MAX engine platform. The nationwide professional karting series – with 21 Rotax MAX Challenge (RMC) divisions throughout the country – will become an Official Partner of the Mazda Road to Indy effective immediately to foster the next wave of up-and-coming drivers.

One of the heads that Garth Rickards has turned belongs to USF2000 team owner John Church, owner of JDC MotorSports. Church has been so impressed by what he has seen out of the Pennsylvania driver this season that he has decided to run Rickards on the streets of Toronto in the USF2000 events scheduled for July 19th and 20th.

Pabst Racing entered the month of May with a team that carried a lot of confidence and optimism. The team raced at the historical Indianapolis Motor Speedway on a road course configuration that had yet to be tested by any drivers in the series. They then went on to race at an oval track a few miles away from the historical speedway, with an oval newbie and a driver who had raced at Lucas Oil Raceway Park the previous year.