Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography/Formula 4 United States Championship

Muscling down a straightaway at Wisconsin’s Road America at speeds approaching 130 miles per hour, Formula 4 driver Lewis Hodgson was suddenly out of control of his car.

Not knowing what happened, he did everything he could to save the car as it began sliding off course. Hodgson frantically turned his wheel back and forth as he slammed on the brakes.

Despite his best efforts, Hodgson slammed into the trackside concrete fence.

After hitting the fence, his car began sliding down the grass surface which ran adjacent to the track. Only then did he have a second to realize what happened.

Shears of metal were flying past Hodgson’s face as his car slid to a stop. Hodgson, while looking around, realized his sidepods, front wing and the entire rear of his car had flown off.

Hodgson walked away from the incident with only a bruised leg. On top of this, he said the luckiest part of the wreck itself was how his car managed to stay on the grass beside the track instead of sliding back on the track into the field of competitors.

A day later, Hodgson was sitting in a driver’s meeting with his Crosslink Kiwi Motorsport team recapping the race weekend.

Hodgson, looking at his teammates, said in that moment that he believed his career in F4 was over.

“I basically said, ‘I’m out’,” Hodgson said. “There’s no way I could come back from it.”

As Hodgson was heading out of Road America, engineers, mechanics and fellow drivers were all giving him words of encouragement and saying that he would be back in the series.

It’s something that due to financial reasons, Hodgson struggled to believe at the time.

Running a full season in F4 in the United States is an endeavor that, according to the league’s estimates, can run somewhere between $130,000 to $195,000. A bulk of the cost is the chassis of the car, which according to the league costs nearly $65,000 per chassis in the 2023 season.

“I hit the wall and a lot of people saw debris flying through the air but I was seeing dollar notes fly behind me,” Hodgson said.

Even before the colossal costs of putting together new car in a month for the next race at Mid-Ohio, Hodgson’s funding was on a week-by-week basis.

Lewis Hodgson spends a large part of each year thousands of miles from his native Australia in Dallas to live with former F4 team owner Patrick Flynn, who gave Hodgson a place to stay as he transitioned to racing in the United States.

While in Texas following his crash, Hodgson was hard at work, contacting sponsors throughout the day and night all over the world in an attempt to try to secure any extra funds that could have him have any hope at finish out the season.

“When it’s 2am here, it’s in the afternoon in Australia and people are answering phone calls and emails,” Hodgson said. “And during the day while I am eating lunch, I’m making phone calls and sending emails and doing anything I can to get some traction.”

Hodgson chose to sell his simulator, instead opting to frequent local karting tracks around the Dallas area.

Despite the stress of having his racing career potentially coming to an abrupt end, Hodgson mentioned the experiences at the karting tracks made him think deeply his own racing journey.

Hodgson found himself racing alongside a seven-year-old kid named Hudson. Hodgson watched as Hudson took his helmet off as quickly as possible following the end of the karting race, only to begin running around the track with his friends.

“A lot of drivers trying to make it, their world is their career,” Hodgson said. “(When) you step back and see the bigger picture, the kids starting in motorsport, there’s businesses that are still running and companies that are still working. The world doesn’t revolve around your racing career.”

Hodgson’s Crosslink Kiwi Motorsport team, also based in Dallas, began working hard to put together a car that Hodgson could potentially use in Mid-Ohio.

Team owner Gill Kaszuba pitched in money as well in order to supplement the cost of trying to get Hodgson back on track.

“(Kaszuba) is trying to run a team and he’s trying to run a business,” Hodgson said. “At the same time, there’s a personal side where he’s caring about me and telling me that we need to get you racing again.”

After weeks of fundraising and work at the shop, Hodgson announced on June 15th that he would be returning to the Formula 4 grid at Mid-Ohio.

In the five races he competed in before the weekend at Mid-Ohio during the F4 season, Hodgson finished in the top 10 in four of them. With a best finish of fourth in the final race NOLA Motorsports Park back in March, Hodgson had established himself as a driver who found himself toward the front of the field consistently despite never landing himself on the podium.

Hodgson headed to Mid-Ohio knowing how crucial a good performance would be for his hopes of getting sponsorship. Complications began to develop throughout the weekend in the leadup to the three F4 races. First, qualifying was canceled to due a storm that rolled into the area meaning the grid was set by championship standings.

“We didn’t qualify and I was bummed about that,” Hodgson said. “I love driving in the rain and it’s usually when I think I’m fastest.”

In race 1, Hodgson rolled off the grid in seventh and immediately began working his way past the cars in front of him. Two safety car incidents shortened the race, but Hodgson made the most of is restarts as he moved his way up into third place. Holding onto his position until the end, he crossed the line to secure his first podium of the season in his first race back.

The race 2 grid was set by the fastest laps in race 1. Hodgson started ninth and had a gearbox issue early on which prevented him from making progress as he proceeded to finish seventh.

The final race’s grid was set by the fastest laps in race 2. With his gearbox issue resolved, Hodgson and teammate Patrick Woods-Toth drove through the field to both land on the podium with Hodgson in third and Woods-Toth winning the race.

“The weekend was such a major success and the best part was being able to reward everyone,” Hodgson said. “There’s so many people behind the scenes that deserve that result as well.”

The Mid-Ohio weekend moved him up to sixth in the championship standings, and while it helped his chances to secure the funding for the rest of the year, Hodgson said there’s still more work to be done.

The Formula 4 season is composed of 18 races, which take place across six rounds at six different tracks. While Hodgson has the money to compete next month at New Jersey Motorsports Park, the final two races at Virginia International Raceway and Circuit of the Americas are still up in the air.

“We’re still looking to lock in (rounds) five and six,” Hodgson said. “It’s just a matter of how much you want it.”

Lewis Hodgson and the rest of the Formula 4 United States Championship grid will be back in action on July 28th at New Jersey Motorsports Park.