The driver announcements keep coming! As we approach the open test for the Star Mazda Series down at Barber Motorsports Park, teams and drivers are rapidly finding accommodation and signing contracts. JDC MotorSports is back at it again this week with another driver signing with young sports car racer Nick Mancuso. Although he’s tested with JDC MotorSports previously, this season will be his first competitive run in a single-seater formula car.
“Things have been coming together nicely for our team in the last few weeks and we are very excited to have added Nick to the driver line-up. This will be an exciting year and I couldn’t be happier with the drivers we have selected.” — John Church, JDC MotorSports Team Principal
“I am incredibly excited that I will actually be on the Star Mazda grid this year. JDC MotorSport’s championship-winning record speaks for itself, so I know that we will have a competitive car. I can’t thank my partners enough for making this happen, and I look forward to starting my journey on the Mazda Road to Indy. I am a bit of an unknown quantity in the openwheel world, and I look forward to hopefully catching some people by surprise when the lights go out in St. Pete.” — Nick Mancuso
Nick has competed in various SCCA sports car classes, securing a 3rd place finish at the Runoffs. In 2008, he competed in the Volkwagen Jetta TDI Cup, a series in which competitors were selected based on talent judged during a series of tests and competitions. He then moved on to compete in the Mazda MX-5 Cup in 2009, and had a one-off in the SCCA World Challenge Series in the GT class. It will be interesting to see how quickly Mr. Mancuso can come up to speed in the much lighter and more nimble Star Mazda car as opposed to the GT and touring cars he’s raced previously.
This certainly won’t be the last we hear form JDC MotorSports before the season begins. So far they have Tristan Vautier as their only full-season driver and Chris Miller for a single race at St. Petersburg. I expect that we’ll see at least one more, if not two, full-time drivers signed before mid-March given what we’ve seen the team put on the grid in previous season.
