Months before he was a USF2000 champion, Simon Sikes recounted a time in the middle of the 2023 season where the idea of finishing the season was uncertain.

Sikes, coming off of his first win of 2023 at Sebring International Raceway, had only been able to secure funding on a race-by-race basis. The season risked being a repeat of each of his past three, where he only ran partial USF2000 schedules.

“I fundraised as much as I could to get to (Indianapolis),” Sikes said. “That was the hardest part of the whole season, getting to IMS.”

Sikes eventually put together enough funding to make it to Indianapolis and moved himself even further into the title fight with Lochie Hughes after picking up his second win. What followed was the turning point of his season, when he was able to bring on Doug Mockett, a long-time motorsports supporter who runs a company that sells architectural hardware, as a sponsor.

His sponsorship allowed for Sikes to focus more on the results and secure the USF2000 title. The championship led to the 23-year old Georgia-native to, yet again, keep his hopes of reaching the IndyCar series alive by a thread.

“(Securing sponsorship) was a massive weight off the shoulders,” Sikes said. “(It) really allowed me to go out and perform without as much of the pressure.”

Once Sikes won the title, he received a scholarship valued at $433,200 to advance to USF Pro 2000 in 2024, a scholarship which is allotted to the series’ champion. Even though he was able to finish out his season in 2023, Sikes said that the prize he received was crucial to being able to move on.

The quest to finish the 2023 season was far from the first time that Sikes said he had questioned his future racing open-wheel cars. 

“There are so many times where I was like, ‘You know, I’m done racing,’” Sikes said. “Not from a sense of ‘I didn’t like it anymore,’ but in the sense that there’s just no way forward.”

Sikes ran three partial seasons in USF2000 with Legacy Autosport. In 2022, he was the only driver in the series through eight races to have finished every single one of them 10th or higher. Despite this, Sikes had to cut his 2022 season short due to funding despite being on the verge of fighting for a championship.

During the 2022 season, Pabst Racing ran near the front of the field with both of their drivers, Myles Rowe and Jace Denmark, finishing second and third in the championship standings. Sikes said he had his sights set on racing for Augie Pabst and his championship-winning team for years but always lacked the funding needed to do so.

Sikes said that his driver coach, Bob Perona helped “get him in” with Augie Pabst and Sikes got him the opportunity to drive in the 2022 USF Pro Championships Fall Combine where Sikes was the fastest in each of the final three sessions.

“I was at the point where I wanted to race for Augie and Augie wanted me to race for him,” Sikes said. “Still, the budget thing was a big issue.”

Overcoming the budget difficulties of the 2023 season and securing the title means that Sikes will continue with Pabst Racing in 2024 in USF Pro 2000. Pabst won the team championship in the series last year on top of winning the driver’s title with Rowe.

Additionally, the four years that Sikes spent overcoming budget struggles to get out of USF2000 means that at 23 years old, he is one of the older drivers currently announced to drive in the series next year.

While some other drivers, including Colton Herta, who debuted in IndyCar at 18, shot up the ladder, Sikes still will likely have at least two years to go before he is in a position in the IndyCar Series. Sikes saw his age as a concern but now believes that it takes a level of maturity in order to stick around at the highest level, pointing at how some top drivers like Scott Dixon and Will Power race into their forties.

“(My goal is) to be the guy that can make a career out of it and stay there for a long time,” Sikes said. “I want to develop myself to a point where I am good enough to make a career that spans more than a decade in IndyCar.”

Even after making the jump to USF Pro 2000, the early test results have looked promising for Sikes so far. He has consistently run in the top-5 across the sessions the series has run at Sebring.

He is looking forward to the upcoming 2024 campaign, something that he described as unique for him, having the finances set to complete for the full season thanks to the championship scholarship.

“Everyone has their own journeys in life,” Sikes said. “I’m really happy with how this has progressed having put in all that effort myself and seeing what I really built for myself.”