Local teenager Carter Sheets isn’t living the typical teenage life. On an event week, he spends Wednesday to Sunday away from home chasing his racing dreams at tracks all over the country — and he is starting to rack up wins.
Sheets, 18, completed his education at home school earlier this year and is devoting his time to the F2000 Championship Series. The former Saegertown student is in his second season with the series and earned his first F2000 win on June 28 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
The win didn’t come without plenty of practice. He began his racing journey with go carts when he was 15 and worked his way up to the open-wheeled series he competes in now. Sheets wanted to follow his father’s footsteps and race motorcycles when he was 12, but his mother wouldn’t allow it, citing the danger.
“We pushed for a couple years to get bikes, but she flat out said ‘No, it wont happen.’ So my dad and I talked in 2021 about go carts because that was the next option,” Sheets said. “She said no two-wheeled racing, but she was okay with carts because there is less injury in the sport entirely.”
Sheets raced go carts for about two years before his family and race team purchased a car for him to compete on the F2000 series.
Now done with his education, he spends hours a day practicing on a racing simulator with whatever track is next on the schedule.
“The day after I get home from a race I put the new track on the sim and run with that the whole time til I leave for the race. I spend probably two or three hours a day on the sim,” Sheets said. “I try to get at least 50 or 60 laps in of trying to push the car faster and faster.
“Then I spend some time looking at markers and trying to figure out how the track behaves in certain areas and which lines work the best.”
All that time in the simulator finally paid off with his first win at Road America.
“I was very happy. It was a really great feeling to finally pull off a win in this series,” Sheets said. “Especially because I struggled at Road America that weekend on Thursday and Friday. To pull off the win on Saturday felt really good.”
The F2000 schedule this season takes drivers to seven different raceways, typically with two races at each track. A normal race week sees Sheets travel to the track on a Wednesday, along with his race team and car. Thursday and Friday consist of several practice sessions. Saturday and Sunday features qualifying in the morning with a race in the afternoon each day.
Hot off his win at Road America in June, Sheets kept momentum on his side in the latest race at Watkins Glen the weekend of July 12. Sheets won both races at the track to sweep the F2000 series. On Saturday, he was in second place for most of the race and made a last-lap pass to secure the win and take the lead in the championship standings for the season. In the second race, Gabriele Jasper crossed the finish line first but failed post-race inspection, resulting in second-place Sheets winning yet again.
After consecutive wins, Sheets leads the field of 16 drivers in the standings. Next on the schedule is New Jersey Motorsports Park from Aug. 1-3 before the season concludes at Summit Point Motorsports Park in West Virginia from Aug. 15-17.
Sheets is thankful to see success in the series, but claims his favorite part of racing is the camaraderie and tight-knit community.
“I love how close the community is. From the outside it looks really cut throat, but everyone I race with is really close and we’re all friendly to each other. There’s no real beef between anyone so we’re actually a tight-knit group and we help each other when we need it,” Sheets said. “If we have broken parts or something someone will come over and assist. If they have a part they may sell it to us instead of keeping it for themselves.”
Regardless of where Sheets ends in the championship standings this season, it will likely be his last run in the F2000 series. He has his sights set on the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) and its Touring Car (TCR) class. He would shift from his F2000 car that looks like a Formula One car, to a closed cockpit car from manufacturers such as Audi, Cupra, Honda and Hyundai.
“We want to make the move over there because it’s televised and sports cars have more opportunities than formula cars. It’s more affordable in terms of getting a seat,” Sheets said. “I want to push to look toward prototype racing because in the end that’s my goal. I want to race either in LMP2 or Hypercar in the World Endurance Championship or in the IMSA Main Weathertech Series. I want to be in the main stage of that because the racing is so close and I’m a big fan of endurance racing.”
LMP2 and hypercars are high-performance cars specifically designed for racing. Sheets’ goal of racing in endurance races would land him on a team in a race anywhere from six to 24 hours long. Each driver has a minimum amount of time they need to be in the car.
To reach his end goal, Sheets has a long road of climbing the ranks of each series. He wants to spend as much time as he can in the driver’s seat so he can develop and improve.
Sheets is using the mindset of some of his favorite drivers like Max Verstappen, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher to help frame his mindset on his journey.
“I like the mentality of some drivers in how they approach racing. If you’re not here to win, why are you here? Those three stand out for that,” Sheets said. “They are there to win and nothing else other than that. That’s a mentality you want to strive for in racing.”