Spencer Pigot – So Far, So Good

Written by Team USA. Posted in Driver Blogs, Spencer Pigot

Published on July 28, 2012 with No Comments

Orlando, Fla. (July 28, 2012) – It feels like only a few weeks ago I was in England with the all Team USA guys crammed in the Cliff Dempsey Racing trailer with a cup of tea trying to keep warm. It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog so I’ll start with very beginning of the year. As soon as I got back from England we started working on 2012. I didn’t have much of an off-season because the Cooper Tires USF2000 WinterFest started in early February, but I’m not complaining about that! I signed with Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing to do the Cooper Tires USF2000 National Championship Powered by Mazda for a second year and everything has been fantastic so far. We won five out of six races in the WinterFest and we’ve won four out of the first five races in the main series. The team has done a great job, the car is always fast and when it’s not they know exactly what to do to fix it. So, that’s a quick recap of what has been happening on track, now let me tell you about what I’ve been up to away from the track.

Like Neil, I moved houses back in February. I’m still in the Orlando area – basically I used to live right next to Disney World and now I’m within a mile of Universal Studios. Unfortunately, I don’t get a chance to go to the parks very often! I’ve also been working quite a bit; when I’m at home I work for my parents’ company delivering furniture. It’s not exactly a fun job but it keeps me busy! Luckily I have another job that I really enjoy – instructing for the Skip Barber Race Series. It’s fun to get back to where I started my car racing career on the opposite side of things. I’ve instructed at a few of their regional race weekends at Sebring, Mont-Tremblant and Road America. I think it makes me a better driver because I really have to think about what I do in the car and the techniques I use so I can help the other drivers. It gives me a chance to analyze different driving styles from the outside, which I normally don’t get a chance to do on a race weekend. It’s a new experience and I’m happy I get to do it.

My most recent adventure was with fellow Team USA Scholarship winner and USF2000 driver Neil Alberico in Indianapolis a few weeks ago. We had been talking about going to Indy to train at PitFit Training for quite a while and finally got the chance to go. I decided to drive to Indy since we were going to need a car. It took about 15 hours but my MazdaSpeed 3 ran great the entire time. I know driving halfway across the country to get my butt kicked by Jim Leo and the other trainers at PitFit for a week doesn’t sounds like the best idea but it was well worth it. Every morning we went into the gym to do various workouts. I think the worst was the five-minute interval session between the rowing machine and the simulator. The simulator was the easy part. After the first interval of rowing we both thought we weren’t going to make it through all the sets. We recorded our highest heart rates of the week that morning! The simulator was really neat; it was one of the best I’ve ever been on! The guy that owns it, Kelly Jones from RaceCraft1, has a ton of experience with simulators. He hand-builds everything from the frame to the wiring in the custom steering wheel. It was very realistic. We probably did 100 laps at Mid-Ohio so Neil and I should be on the front row there next week, no problem!

Although we only spent one week in Indy I’ve been training through PitFit’s online program since the beginning of the year. It’s a very cool program. They send me workouts online and I take them to my local gym. I work one-on-one with Ben Kissick via e-mail. He explains what I need to do and monitors my progress.

It’s been almost two months since the last USF2000 race in Indianapolis and, thankfully, we don’t have to wait long now until Mid-Ohio. Originally I didn’t think I would have much to do during the break. I’ve actually been able to keep pretty busy and have a lot of fun. Having said that, I wish there wasn’t such a long break. I’m ready to get back to racing!

Thanks for reading,
Spencer

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