Braden Eves Faces ‘The Truth’ In Motorsports

When Braden Eves hit the turn-three tire barrier at Wisconsin’s Road America in June, the 25-year-old racer knew his season was probably over.

A suspension failure during a test session sent his USF Pro 2000 car through the gravel trap into the barrier, damaging all four corners. The cost of repairs was in the low six-figure range.

Still, his Exclusive Autosport team continued to the next round at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in early July.

But after contact with Nicolas Baptiste damaged his left-rear suspension during the second race of the Mid-Ohio doubleheader, Eves’ season was finished.

The native of Gahanna, Ohio, knows all too well that the first truth in motorsports is that money is the ultimate fuel for race cars.

Eves had to prove himself instantly out of karting, finishing second in his first car race, driving a Formula 4 machine at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2017.

Now, a promising young driver is on the sidelines after crash-damage bills chewed up a significant portion of his 2024 racing budget in the USF Pro 2000 championship.

His team, Exclusive Autosport, released a statement that the doubleheader weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course would be Eves’ last race weekend for the season. A typical USF Pro 2000 budget is around $750,000 per year.

“It’s so competitive and it just gets more and more competitive year after year, but the budgets aren’t getting any lower,” Eves said. “They’re only going up and I’ve always felt the confidence in myself to know that I deserve and have the ability to be in IndyCar and race in IndyCar and compete at a high level in IndyCar.

“But the hardest thing for me is just moving up the ladder,” Eves continued. “There are people who I’ve definitely outperformed year after year that moved on to Indy NXT and now are actually doing half decent in Indy NXT based on merit.

“I mean, really, there were other drivers, myself included, who deserved to move up more in my opinion. But unfortunately, it just takes dollars. It takes dollars and takes opportunity and, unfortunately, there’s just not a lot if you don’t have the funding.”

Eves’ 2024 campaign has been a roller-coaster ride. After leaving the opening race weekend in St. Petersburg sixth in points, his effort at NOLA Motorsports Park was abysmal, finishing no better than 12th during the tripleheader weekend.

Things seemingly turned around at Indianapolis in May with a top-10 finish on the IMS road course and a dominant victory in the Freedom 90 on the oval at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.

However, the bottom fell out at Road America with the testing accident and a pair of collisions that required enough spare parts to eat up the rest of Eves’ racing budget.

Braden Eves on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., earlier this season. (Gavin Baker photo)

The fact Eves is racing at all is a minor miracle.

He claimed the 2019 USF2000 championship after winning six times and scoring 12 top-five finishes in 15 races. The scholarship check for just over $305,000 allowed Eves to move up to USF Pro 2000. He was third in points during the COVID-impacted 2020 season when the series headed to the IMS road course in September.

Eves spun while battling with Danial Frost for sixth place. What should have been a relatively harmless accident became much more serious as the left-rear tire went underneath Eves’ car, launching it into the air.

The car landed upside down on the transition between turn two of the oval and the warmup lane. Eves suffered several fractured vertebrae in his neck.

Two and a half months later, Eves returned to the cockpit of a race car. Four months after that test, he won his first race back in Indy Pro 2000. After narrowly missing the 2021 championship, Eves switched teams for 2022 and finished lower in points.

“It was a good experience for me, but we definitely didn’t execute the way that we would’ve liked,” Eves said of his 2022 campaign. “Just really wasn’t competitive enough to fight for the championship, was kind of just struggling and then unfortunately in this sport, you’re only as good as your last race.

“So, despite having three seasons prior where I was only ever in the top two for points and fighting for a championship three years straight, the money (ran out) and I didn’t have any opportunity.”

The following year, Eves didn’t have a budget for the full season and instead focused on racing a go-kart in the U.S. Pro Kart Series. He participated in the annual fall USF Championships test at the IMS road course, where he was fastest in the first session.

Eves signed with Exclusive Autosport, but racing’s twists and turns have forced the former Team USA Scholarship driver to look further into the future.

“At this point I’m trying to focus more on 2025,” Eves said after the Mid-Ohio disappointment. “I’m really trying to just figure out what’s best for me and my career in the future going forward.

“I’m trying to be a professional in this sport, so I need to figure out what the best way of doing that is, especially after we’ve had results to show that I still have the ability and I’ve had pace at the top of the charts on multiple weekends this year.”

What’s next for Eves? Only time will tell.

THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE July 17 EDITION OF <a href=”https://speedsportinsider.com”>SPEED SPORT INSIDER</a>
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