“I grew up washing parts and doing things in the engine shop, and that’s where I kind of got the bug for it.”
Such is how the racing story began for Mike Meyer, great-grandson of Louis Meyer, the first three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. The younger Meyer is continuing the family’s motorsports legacy with his own team in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship, the initial rung of the Mazda Road to Indy development ladder sanctioned by INDYCAR.
Meyer created the aptly named Legacy Autosport to compete with two cars in the 2019 USF2000 championship after starting his motorsports journey with his father, Butch Meyer, and grandfather, Sonny Meyer – each a legendary engine builder – years ago at the Team Menard engine shops in the infancy of the Verizon IndyCar Series.
It truly is a family effort for the team. Butch is the chief mechanic on the team’s No. 77 entry. Mike’s brother Matt works on tires and shocks for both cars. For inspiration on running the team, Mike turned to his own experience learning from the late Chris Griffis, who ran the Indy Lights operation for Sam Schmidt Motorsports until his untimely death in 2011. The annual fall open test for all three Mazda Road to Indy levels at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is named in honor of Griffis.
“I worked with Chris Griffis when he was at Sam Schmidt Motorsports,” Mike Meyer said. “He was a great guy, an amazing person, a close friend and a great boss. I always thought if I ever was able to have my own team, I wanted to emulate the way he ran his team with Schmidt, so it’s always been a goal of mine.”
Meyer teamed with Metalloid CEO Fred Edwards and Ryan Barth, formerly of RJB Motorsports, to form Legacy Autosport. The goal is eventually to get into Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires – the top MRTI rung – but the team is taking measured steps.
“We’re working on a few things,” Meyer said. “Maybe you can see us at the Freedom 100 (in 2019) if everything pans out. We hope maybe in a year to two years at least have some presence in Indy Lights.
“Our goal is to have a two- or three-car team in Indy Lights, and I’d like to say we’ll have a team in every step of the ladder. If we can do that it would be awesome, but the overall goal is to be in Indy Lights.”
Signing French driver Alexandre Baron for the No. 7 entry solved the teams’ first piece of the puzzle. Baron won two USF2000 races this year for Swan-RJB Motorsports and was the only driver other than champion Kyle Kirkwood to win a race in 2018. Baron previously won in USF2000 in 2013 and in Indy Lights in 2014, and is looking to reboot his racing career in 2019.
Baron turned 103 laps at the Chris Griffis Memorial Test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in September with a fastest lap of 1 minute, 24.9831 seconds (103.319 mph) around the 2.439-mile circuit. It ranked as third best among the 14 USF2000 drivers who tested.
“Alex is an amazing driver. You give him the right type of equipment and he can win any race,” said Meyer. “I worked with him in 2014 with Belardi and we won with him (at Toronto). I was on Gabby Chaves’ car and I just knew that someday he was going to be able to make it to (the Verizon IndyCar Series), and things just didn’t kind of roll his way.”
The Mazda Road to Indy has another open test scheduled for Dec. 3-4 on the road course at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida. The three feeder series open their 2019 seasons along with the IndyCar Series on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, from March 8-10.