Words by Enrique McLeggon, Images by Rob Wilkinson, Justin Gora, Felipe Gonzales and Ben. Felipe Gonzales and His Quest to Become a Racing Driver! Felipe is originally a Brazilian National who grew up watching the great Ayrton Senna racing in Formula One. He always had a thing for cars and racing and back when he was still living in Brazil, he occasionally competed in kart racing but not at the professional level. Felipe then emigrated to the US in 2018 as an adult
bumped up through the run groups because of how fast he was and finished the weekend in the advanced group. It was a great experience for him, but it also felt weird because he wasn’t using his own car. The S2000 was basically stock when he purchased it, with the plan of sending it to PRD Racing for Dean Palmer and Justin Kelly to build it to GLTC specifications. He then focused on learning about
and moved to North Dakota. He later met Jake Joraanstad, the founder of Myriad Motorsports in January of 2020. Jake also competes in the Gridlife Touring Cup (GLTC). Felipe then moved to Fargo in 2020 and started his racing career by driving one of Jake’s Integras at a HPDE event and about a month later, he bought his own S2000. He progressed to getting his GLTC license and got his own car ready for competition. His first ever HPDE event was at Autobahn Country Club last year where he participated in Jake’s Integra. Started out in Beginner’s group he impressed as the weekend progressed and he was
the car as he was going to be competing in GLTC with it and went to HR Motorsports Racing School where he refined his skills alongside Justin Kelly, Tiffany Kelly and Dean Palmer. His first actual GLTC race was last year at Road America which he also competed in using Jake’s Integra. He was always a wheel to wheel racer and never really liked Time Attack, so it all felt natural to him at the time to be running with others in close proximity. The risks were quite high since he wasn’t driving his own car and as a result, he didn’t push as hard as he could
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have but he didn’t finish in the back either. He then raced again at Gingerman Raceway at night in the
