Lining up on the grid for the Indy NXT Milwaukee Mile in 2024, Yuven Sundaramoorthy’s red and white racing helmet stood out to the Wisconsin crowd. The helmet was emblazoned with a large red W, an homage to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his alma mater.
“It was a huge thing of just trying to get the Wisconsin spirit up,” Sundaramoorthy said. “I was very happy that I was able to show that and exemplify that a little bit more.”
But this year, Sundaramoorthy’s career took a hit. His lost his sponsor, sidelining him for the 2025 season. Still, racing the Milwaukee Mile was a highlight in a dream that started years ago, and he has his eyes set on getting back in the driver’s seat soon.
Born in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, Sundaramoorthy moved out of the state at 4 years old. But his desire to return remained, as UW-Madison had been a school Sundaramoorthy had long set his sights on.
“It was always my dream school. And so [I] finally got to go back there and keep up the racing side,” Sundaramoorthy said. “I was really happy with how everything worked out.”
At UW-Madison, Sundaramoorthy built on his already-developed racing career through Wisconsin Racing, the university’s Formula SAE team.
Formula SAE is a student design competition organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), focused on developing a small Formula-style car from scratch and competing against other university teams across the country and world. When Sundaramoorthy came to UW-Madison in 2020, the Wisconsin Racing team had suffered from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We lost a bunch of members, so it was kind of a start from scratch, and a bunch of us, we were working together on figuring everything out,” Sundaramoorthy said.
But in its last event at the end of last year, the Wisconsin Racing team placed third out of over 120 participating teams, a huge improvement from the team’s struggles when Sundaramoorthy first joined.
“It was a really nice cap on my college career,” he said.
Sundaramoorthy graduated in three and a half years with a degree in Computer Science. He then moved to Indianapolis to pursue racing, a dream he had looked to bring to fruition since he first started racing at 10 years old.
Sundaramoorthy found early success in the IndyCar ladder with first-place finishes in the USF Pro 2000 Championship and U.S. F2000 National Championship. Both driver development programs focused on developing drivers on the road to the IndyCar series.
In 2021, Sundaramoorthy became the first Indian American driver to win an IndyCar-sanctioned event with a first-place finish at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, another two at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and another in the penultimate race of the season at Mid-Ohio.
That season, Sundaramoorthy’s total nine podium finishes were enough for him to finish third in the standings with 329 points.
“It was a big thing for me because I was at a point in my career where I was like, I don’t know if this is something I can keep doing,” Sundaramoorthy said. “And it kind of was that little bit of affirmation that I needed.”
In 2023, Sundaramoorthy joined Abel Motorsports on the Indy NXT grid, a developmental racing series he describes as akin to the “G League in the NBA.” That season, he drove in select rounds in the No. 57 car.
But in 2024, at the helm of Abel Motorsport’s No. 22 car, Sundaramoorthy showed flashes of his talent as a full-time driver. He closed out the year with a season-best P2 in Nashville alongside a P3 finish at Gateway Motorsports Park in Illinois.
With two Wisconsin-based races on the calendar — the Milwaukee Mile in the 13th round and Road America in the sixth round — Sundaramoorthy said representing his home state was a big deal.
But the Milwaukee Mile hadn’t been on the calendar for years, and its return aligned with Sundaramoorthy’s rookie season.
Despite the loss of his sponsor, he’s managed to stay involved in automotive engineering. Almost immediately after the news, he was able to use his degree to land a job with Tesla as an engineer.
Now, Sundaramoorthy said he is looking to get back in the driver’s seat, and he already has his eyes set on running in the Milwaukee Mile again this year.
“I love that event, I love that track and obviously, I love the city and the state,” Sundaramoorthy said.
Molly Sheehan is the Photo Editor and Sports Editor Emeritus for The Daily Cardinal. She has covered Wisconsin Badgers sports, written articles including player profiles and game previews, and covered match-ups as a photojournalist. Follow her on X @mollyrsheehan and Instagram @msheehanphotos.
