Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Terminates Indy Lights Program

2016 Indy Lights runners-up Schmidt Peterson Motorsports are leaving the IndyCar feeder series. Does their exit spell trouble for more than SPM?

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports announced this week that the team is leaving the Indy Lights development series in order to focus on its Verizon IndyCar Series efforts, dropping a bomb just a few months before the 2017 season.

“I really want to focus on taking our IndyCar squad from being a good team with occasional flashes of brilliance to becoming a frequent front-runner,” said team owner Sam Schmidt to Racer, citing Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing as an example of what a smaller team can do at the IndyCar level.

Schmidt Peterson ran two full-time Indy Lights cars in 2016, including the one belonging to championship runner-up Santiago Urrutia. They also fielded partial drives for three other drivers this year. There was no immediate information on what will happen with those drivers for 2017.

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But one of them, RC Enerson, created controversy earlier this year when he elected to take the budget given him to run with SPM in Indy Lights and instead use it to pursue a ride in IndyCar. Though Enerson got what he wanted – running three races with Dale Coyne Racing in the second half of the IndyCar season – Schmidt subsequently pursued legal action against Enerson’s father to recover the money.

He didn’t mention the lawsuit as a factor in closing the team, but that situation and the financial loss certainly aren’t positives when so many race teams – in Indy Lights and otherwise – are trying hard for every dollar they can muster.

Plus Schmidt has an increasing number of outside demands on his time and money, including the ongoing development of his SAM Corvette, for which he got the country’s first autonomous car driver’s license in September.

“Unfortunately, if the Indy Lights team was going to succeed, it was going to be me who needed to do it,” Schmidt said. “I’m just out of bandwidth to do everything at the level it deserves without reducing my commitments.”

But his decision is much bigger than just another race team shutting its doors. It is a major blow to Indy Lights, which has been struggling to maintain its relevance and the quality of its racing.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports was possibly the strongest team in Indy Lights; they could have won the title this year but for just two points between Urrutia and Ed Jones. From 2010 to 2013, Schmidt’s organization turned out four consecutive Lights champions.

It’s also been home to several future IndyCar drivers, including the league’s hottest rising star Josef Newgarden, who’s now racing for Team Penske. Four other SPM drivers have competed recently in IndyCar – Jack Hawksworth, Sage Karam, Gabby Chaves, and Tristan Vautier – though none of them are currently on the grid.

And therein lies the problem: if Indy Lights – and the entire Mazda Road to Indy development ladder – is supposed to be feeding talent into IndyCar, it’s not exactly paid off.

Newgarden is an unquestionable success but he’s the exception, not the rule. Hawksworth just lost his ride after three years of average performance, while Karam didn’t make it past one turbulent season and Chaves was good enough to be named IndyCar Rookie of the Year but not enough for someone to give him the funding to keep his car.

The jury’s still out on Max Chilton and Spencer Pigot, who jumped up from Lights last year and both did workmanlike jobs but have yet to secure rides for the 2017 IndyCar season.

Many of the drivers coming up from Indy Lights are unable to hang on long-term after reaching IndyCar – either because they run out of money or because they simply don’t perform.

And most of them don’t hang around Lights to begin with. Enerson, realizing he wouldn’t be a Lights contender, decided to quit mid-season. Current champion Ed Jones, Newgarden and Chaves spent two seasons in Lights; Karam and Hawksworth did only one.

It’s fair to ask what the value of a development series is if the drivers don’t actually spend that much time developing – and might that also be contributing to the aforementioned performance problem?

It’s expensive to run a full-season ride at any level of motorsports, so if it’s not going to pay off there’s no reason for even a contending team like Schmidt Peterson to continue. With Mikhail Aleshin and James Hinchcliffe locked in on their IndyCar roster, they wouldn’t have any direct benefit from their Indy Lights team.

And if the choice is between supporting a great team in a declining league or potentially creating a great team at the top level then the closure would seem to be a financially prudent decision as well.

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But fans should ultimately be more concerned about what Schmidt Peterson’s withdrawal means for Indy Lights. This is the equivalent of Penske or Ganassi deciding to walk away from IndyCar. It’s a further blow to the quality of competition in the league, and to young drivers who’ll lose the shot at advancing their careers in an SPM seat.

Maybe it’s time to take a good, hard look at Indy Lights because if Sam Schmidt is saying it’s not right for him, he’s certainly worth listening to.