INDYCAR: Enerson aiming for late-season debut

Indy Lights race winner RC Enerson made the decision to halt his 2016 campaign prior to the Road America weekend in order to save money and focus on graduating to the Verizon IndyCar Series. The call made by the 19-year-old Florida product – who spent 2015 and half of this year driving for the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team – is bold but understandable.

Coming off a rookie Indy Lights campaign with SPM where he won at Mid-Ohio and placed fourth in the championship, Enerson took stock of his seventh-place position in the standings after Indianapolis and realized there was little chance of capturing the title and the accompanying IndyCar advancement prize.

His quiet exit from the series prior to Road America, as he confirms, was done to conserve the rest of his Lights budget so it could be used toward some form of IndyCar campaign.

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"It was a tough decision but it was the right one," Enerson told RACER. "It made the most sense budget-wise with where we were in the Lights championship, and we already have half of what we'd spend to run the rest of the season. We were seventh in points so there wasn't much worth in me being there, and I was already at the limit of the car, so there wasn't much left to learn."

Enerson credits reigning Indy Lights champion Spencer Pigot, who graduated to IndyCar this year with the Rahal Letterman Lanigan team before being picked up by Ed Carpenter Racing, for helping in the decision-making process.

"We talked to Spencer on how he was doing and he said it was a whole new ballgame and that the only way you're going to learn to drive in IndyCar is being tossed in straight at the deep end," he said.

Among Enerson's most pressing goals, receiving an invite from an IndyCar team to participate in the informal "young guns" test at Mid-Ohio on July 21, where teams are given additional testing time by the series if an Indy Lights driver is used, ranks at the top of his immediate priorities.

"We're seeing what we can do to get on the list," he said. "I did the full Indy Lights season last year and the first half this year, so technically, I'm considered a full-time driver, so we want to get in on the [young guns] test."

Although Enerson is trying to plan ahead, he's also hoping to make something happen in IndyCar later this year as a precursor to an expanded program for 2017.

"We're seeing what we can do this year with a one-off and looking to run a full-time IndyCar program next year," he added. "We've had some positive reactions from the teams we've spoken to and they think we're doing the right thing. Now it's just looking forward and trying to find the right team – the right team for the budget we have."