After missing the Chris Griffis Memorial Mazda Road to Indy test in October, 2012 Star Mazda champion Jack Hawksworth (LEFT) will get to gauge where he stands amongst other Firestone Indy Lights competitors in the series' first Open Test on the Homestead-Miami Speedway road course on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
With temperatures expected to be in the 70s for the two-day test, Hawksworth and Sam Schmidt Motorsports will be looking to complete a checklist of items to prepare for the season opener at St. Petersburg in March.
"With the weather forecast set to be good for two days, it will give us the opportunity to experiment with some different changes and tweaks to the car set-up in order to try and understand the Indy Lights car more and also the best way for me to extract performance from it," Hawksworth said. "Alongside this it will be a great relationship-building exercise as I will get to see more of how the team works, and vice versa the team will get more of an idea of how I work."
Hawksworth will be joined under the Sam Schmidt Motorsports awning by Gabby Chaves, who finished second to Hawksworth in the 2012 Star Mazda Championship. Other drivers expected to participate include Zach Veach and Carlos Munoz (Andretti Autosport), Peter Dempsey and Mike Larrison (Belardi Auto Racing), Juan Pablo Garcia and Mikael Grenier (Team Moore Racing) and Giancarlo Serenelli (Juncos Racing).