Published June 20th, 2025 – learn more about Yashom at: https://kapoorracing.com/home/yashom
When I started my racing journey over a decade ago, I never expected to be where I am today.
For my 8th birthday, my parents surprised me by taking me to an amusement park which had go-karts. However, I was too short to drive them at the time, so I sat frustratedly in the passenger seat while my parents trundled around the track. At the end of the day, I begged my dad to take me karting for real.
I became hooked. My dad, my sister, and I became our own little operation. We had no idea what we were doing, but we loved it—and despite errors and frustrations we valued the time that we got together. My dad’s work required him to travel frequently, so while he was gone from Monday to Friday in some other part of the world, the weekend was our sacred time to hang out with him.
After many years of enjoying the experience, we began rapidly improving. We were lucky to have fantastic mentors along the way—Jim Perry, Greg Bell, Steve Budelli, Austin Elliott, Ben Calvo, and many, many others—who aided in that. Once that happened, we began taking racing much more seriously. Competing at the ROK Sonoma series, as well as other regional and national level races, we began finding our footing.
Last season was my biggest yet. I entered with experience, support, and speed—and quickly emerged as a consistent front-runner. I often qualified up front and won prefinals, only to face mechanical failures that held me back in the main events. A recurring issue with the carburetor reed meant I was almost always racing uphill. Still, I led the championship going into the final round, part of a tight three-way fight. That weekend, I clawed my way up the field in the final, aiming for the podium, when my engine finally gave out. I sat by the side of the track as the leaders pulled away—my title slipping with them. It hurt, but in that moment, I realized just how much I had grown and how much this sport now meant to me.
That ending felt bittersweet, as I thought it would be my last dance. I had just graduated high school, on my way to UC Berkeley to learn about data science and artificial intelligence. While I loved racing, I could never afford to put in the same amount of time as my competitors, as it was always my intention to work hard and do well in school.
What I hadn’t expected is the next step in the journey to come to me. After my performance in the ROK Sonoma series, World Speed Motorsports invited me to their shootout event. As I was getting ready to hang up my boots, a new opportunity came calling, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. It was an amazing experience, seeing firsthand what a well oiled racing team really meant. Telo and Mark were extremely professional and well-spoken, and I was immediately impressed. I put my best foot forward and hoped for the best.
I was disappointed when I learned I hadn’t been selected to pilot the VMB F4. Once again, I prepared to hang up my boots until I received an offer from the team: a second seat opened up, and I had the opportunity to fill it. That decision weighed on my mind for days, occasional thoughts of if I was competent enough and whether it was worth it floated in my mind. Finally, I decided to give it a shot. Not with thoughts of future glory, but just for fun—an opportunity to enjoy cool cars with my dad and have a surreal experience on track. After all, how many people can say they drove an F4 car?
My first time in the car was not the one I would have hoped for. Instead of a simple, easygoing test to learn the car, my first laps were on a rain-soaked Sonoma Raceway during the first race of the year. Telo Stewart, my coach that weekend, was solely focused on building a good foundation—even if it meant not chasing every second. I honed on hitting every apex, finding my breaking points, and letting the feel of the car come to me over time. After experiencing my first spin and an unfortunate failure of my anti-fog (leaving me squinting through a 90-year-old’s fuzzy vision at 130mph), I tiptoed my way to a surprising podium in my second race, just thankful the car made it back to the pits with no damage.
Suddenly, I had a new excitement for racing. Getting faster meant pushing limits and realizing there was still more to go. The race was between my fear and the throttle pedal. And the next race weekend at Thunderhill would put that challenge in full focus.
My goal that weekend was simple: get uncomfortable. If the car was doing exactly what I wanted, I knew I wasn’t pushing hard enough. My coach, Jan Trojan, emphasized building confidence through following the progression. On the first practice day, we went from 20 seconds off pace to just under a second off. One perfectly executed 360 later and I finally understood the car’s rhythm—how it pitched forward under braking, backward under throttle, and how that elusive “balance” came from dancing on that edge. I learned to use the car’s pitch to shape its handling. As the weekend progressed and the tires began wearing, I felt the car gently slip under trail breaking into slow corners, pointing me in the right direction—and I became hooked to that feeling. I finally understood why Kyle Loh, a fellow driver, explained, “you’ll learn to love driving on old tires.” With my heart in my throat and every part of me—hands, eyes, feet, mind—in sync, I did something I never expected I could: I won. Back to back. That curse of being so close finally lifted, and I was on top of the world.
I’ll always be a student—chasing breakthroughs in machine learning and solving stubborn math proofs. I’m also a startup founder, building technology to support families of children with autism, blending research, empathy, and engineering into real-world solutions. But something unexpected has returned: the dream of becoming an IndyCar driver. A dream first born when a 9-year-old me tiptoed across the bricks of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, not yet realizing how long, winding, and beautiful the journey would be to even get close.
I’m endlessly grateful to those who brought me here: Mark, Telo, and Jan at World Speed; my mentors from karting; my fiercest competitor (and sister); and especially my dad, who’s stood by me whether I was lifting a trophy or pushing the kart back to the trailer.
I don’t know what the future knows, but I do know I’m not done chasing what matters. As a founder, I understand what it means to build something meaningful, to find the right partners, and to create value beyond the obvious. I’m not just looking for support, I’m looking to collaborate with people and organizations who see something in this story. If that’s you, I’d love to connect. I’ll be back on track next week at Laguna Seca—throttle down, eyes up, and more excited than ever.