Despite winning an open-wheel championship in 2023, 17-year-old Alex Popow finds himself in a situation familiar to many young racing drivers in the United States—his future hanging in limbo due to finances.

Popow won seven races and the title in the first year of the Florida-based Formula Inter series, driving Formula 4 cars and attracting talent that would later race in the USF Pro Championships and Formula 4.

Popow has yet to participate in a race in either of those series. The opportunity to test a USF Juniors car at Sebring this week allowed Popow to inch ever so slightly toward his 2024 goal of securing a seat.

Sitting in Popow’s house is a paper that he wrote in December 2022 where he made a commitment to the idea that in 2024, he would be racing in the USF Pro Championships. A year later, he was at Sebring with a chance to prove himself, driving for Exclusive Autosport.

Popow only used one set of tires during the weekend to save money and finished in the top four in each of the first four sessions against drivers who had been in the car all weekend. Popow arguably looked most impressive in session four, where he ran 28 laps and finished 0.147 seconds off the lead in third place.

“To be a tenth off with just one set of tires was really good,” Popow said. “Now, we’re just trying to see what options we have to try and put a season together for next year.”

Popow had never driven in the USF Juniors car before Sebring. Previously, the only car racing series he competed in were Formula Inter and one round of the Lucas Oil Race Series at Homestead, where he achieved a first and second place finish in the first two races.

Despite all the wins that Popow put together on the racetrack in 2023, the largest hurdle remains finding sponsorship to fund a USF Juniors season, which, according to estimates from previous years, will cost over $100,000.

When USOpenWheelNation surveyed drivers entering open-wheel racing this past summer about what stands in the way of receiving proper funding and sponsorship, many cited the low return on investment that comes with junior-level series as opposed to series like INDYCAR and Formula One.

Popow acknowledged the minimal returns that sponsors get from racing compared to other advertising methods but instead equated sponsorship to making an investment in the future of a driver.

“It’s just a matter of finding people that want to help you,” Popow said. “Finding a person that will support you in your role to keep moving up the ladder and eventually just invest in you to get further up the ladder and eventually, hopefully, make it to INDYCAR.”

Popow’s father, who shares the same first and last name as him, was an LMPC class champion in the American Le Mans Series in 2012. Additionally, his father has a class win in the 12 Hours of Sebring and finished second overall in the 2012 24 Hours of Daytona.

Now, Popow’s father serves as an integral part of Popow’s racing career. Popow has described his father as being similar to a “manager” to him, and Popow attributes all of his success to being alongside his dad.

“It’s like we’re both working toward a certain goal and trying to achieve it,” Popow said. “I definitely can’t do it without him.”

Popow began karting in 2012 and moved up the national rankings before a serious incident jeopardized his future progress. Popow spent years away from racing between 2018 and 2021 after breaking his collarbone in a karting race when his kart flipped over.

After spending four months in recovery, Popow would proceed to return to karting and break his collarbone for a second time. With his injuries combined with a decline in his family’s business that prevented financial support, Popow stepped away from racing for a while.

Popow found himself mountain biking and doing motocross in 2021. He looked at all the people he raced against in his youth before his injury moving up the open-wheel ladder toward series like Formula 4 and the USF Pro Championships. At his home track at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Popow worked toward karting again before eventually running in his first Formula Inter race.

Popow attributed his desire to come back to his passion he holds for the sport.

“As long as I’m driving something, I don’t care,” Popow said. “I always tell the teams that I’m with that I don’t care if you send me out there in a golf cart or even a bicycle.”

Golf carts and bicycles aside, the goal for Popow still remains getting the funding needed to drive in a car in the USF Pro Championships in 2024.

It is a goal he wishes to achieve to latch on to the series’ increasingly valuable scholarship system, which rewards drivers for winning championships all the way up to securing a ride in the Indianapolis 500.

For a champion like Popow, it is the logical next step.

“I just really want that one shot, you know,” Popow said. “And show what I can do, show the potential I have with a little amount of track time.”