"Congratulations to Michel Self on being selected for this honor" said Champ Car President and CEO Steve Johnson. "We are excited to see how he will do in the Skip Barber Regional Series and hopefully we will see him someday in the Champ Car ranks. Champ Car is proud to be partners with the ROTAX Kart Challenge as we help drivers develop in our ladder program."
As the Official Karting Series of the Champ Car World Series, the Champ Car ROTAX Kart Challenge serves as the first step for young drivers who want to climb toward an open-wheel racing career.
Self's scholarship at the Skip Barber Regional Series level will put him one step closer to the first echelon in the Mazda Ladder System and will allow him to compete in the largest open-wheel amateur championship in North America.
From the Skip Barber Regional Series, drivers have a chance to move on to the BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda, then jump up to the Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear and finally follow in the footsteps of Graham Rahal, James Hinchcliffe and Raphael Matos and graduate to the Cooper Tires Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda.
"We would like to congratulate Michel Self on being the winner of the Champ Car ROTAX Kart Challenge," stated ROTAX Program Director Joe Ramos Jr. " Champ Car, ROTAX and Skip Barber have a common goal which is to foster drivers with career aspirations and give them the chance to kick-start their racing career. These incentives give them something extra to push for. By creating these developmental ladder systems, Champ Car is making talent the deciding factor in who competes at the highest level."
The Champ Car ROTAX Kart Challenge program consists of more than 200 events held through approximately 32 regional challenge series in the United States. Champ Car ROTAX invites the very best drivers from each local series to compete at the ROTAX Grand National. From the ROTAX Grand National, ten drivers will then be chosen to represent ROTAX America's Team presented by Mazda at the ROTAX Grand Finals in Dubai this December where they will compete against 60 other nations involved in the worldwide ROTAX Karting program.