California-born, Australian-based New Zealander Hunter McElrea rose above a talented crowd this afternoon at the Bondurant Racing School to win the third annual Mazda Road to Indy USF2000 $200K Scholarship Shootout.

The stage is set. A total of 20 aspiring young drivers representing nine different nations and no fewer than six continents will congregate this weekend, December 8-9, at the Bondurant Racing School in Chandler, Ariz. One of them will leave with a $200,000 Mazda Scholarship to enter next season’s Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship.

The second day of the final Mazda Road to Indy Open Test of the 2018 season was brought to a premature conclusion by a heavy rainstorm which completely drenched the 2.21-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway road course in south Florida this afternoon.

Hot and humid conditions blighted the first of two days that will comprise the final Mazda Road to Indy Open Test of the season held at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but even though lap times in all three open-wheel categories – Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires, the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires and the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda – were well shy of the existing track records, that didn’t stop David Malukas (BN Racing), Rasmus Lindh (Pabst Racing) and Cameron Shields (Cape Motorsports) from gaining some early bragging rights.

Next week’s Mazda Road to Indy Open Test at Homestead-Miami Speedway marks the final official event under the patronage of Mazda after nine years at the helm of what has grown into the most effective open-wheel driver development program in the world. It also represents the predawn of a new era as teams and drivers begin to focus on chasing more than $2M in scholarships and prizes that will be paid out as part of the 2019 Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires.