Motorsport folk wisdom says that your biggest rival is often your teammate. What if your teammate is also your brother? Feeder Series caught up with two sets of siblings who’ve raced one another this year on the USF Pro Championships ladder to learn about their unique intra-team dynamics.

By Michael McClure and Marco Albertini

Racing is, in many cases, a sport of family dynasties upheld by children chasing their parents’ legacies. But when there are multiple children with similar goals fighting over the same few inches on track, those dynamics get a little more complicated.

That was the case last month at Road America, where two pairs of brothers faced one another in the USF2000 round held at the circuit.

DEForce Racing fielded 19-year-old Rodrigo Gonzalez and 16-year-old Patricio Gonzalez, both competing full-time in USF Juniors and part-time in USF2000. Driving for Exclusive Autosport were USF2000 regular Evan Cooley, 18, and Brenden Cooley, a 15-year-old USF Juniors competitor making his series debut. This was the latter pair’s first race head to head since the NOLA round of the YACademy Winter Series this February. 

“I’d say there’s definitely a sibling rivalry, but at the end of the day we’re both family,” Brenden tells Feeder Series in the Road America paddock. “We both want the other one to succeed. You always keep pushing yourself to do better than the other, but it’s a good thing. We push each other to do better. If one falls back, we help each other get back up.”

As the only full-time driver of the four in the series, the elder Cooley was – perhaps unsurprisingly – the fastest of the four. He qualified second and finished seventh in race one before taking his second podium of the season in race two by finishing second.

The Gonzalez brothers had challenging races, retiring from one each after collisions and finishing outside the top 10 in the other.

The younger Cooley only entered one race, from which he retired in a crash, before withdrawing from race two. Title-contending teammate Jack Jeffers’ chassis was too badly damaged to run after an accident in race one earlier in the day, and Jeffers returned to the track for race two in Cooley’s chassis, now used as a spare.

The five members of the Cooley family live in Mokena, Illinois – a southern suburb of Chicago. There, the family’s two older children prepare for their races while their cars live at the Exclusive headquarters in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“A lot of it’s at home because the team’s based out of Indianapolis,” Evan says. “We do go to the shop usually once a month, but it’s just pretty far. We both have our own simulators, so we’re able to do that. We prep with our teammates as well. We all play iRacing and we go over video, data, before we get a pre-event report.” 

“It’s been nice having a brother who’s raced in USF2000 before,” Brenden adds. “We’ll sit down together, watch video, go through notes. He’ll give me his personal accounts of how things were, how things act and general stuff.”

It’s a typical teammate dynamic in many ways except that they live in the same household – along with their team owner. Their father, Joshua Cooley, joined Michael Duncalfe as a co-owner of Exclusive Autosport in May 2024, during Evan’s first USF Juniors season.

His arrival has coincided with a boost in form for Exclusive. While the USF Juniors squad is at the foot of the teams’ standings after downsizing to two cars, the USF2000 squad, led by Jeffers, is currently first in the teams’ standings and in position to win their first title. The USF Pro 2000 squad, led by Mac Clark, is fourth and eight points away from their first top-three finish since their title win in 2021.

“We’ve definitely changed a lot,” Evan says about the team since his father’s arrival. “He’s put a lot into the team, so a lot of new equipment, better staff, just everything’s gotten better. Just more capital, mainly.”

“We’ve seen a huge improvement in the team performance-wise and in every way possible,” Brenden adds. “It’s fun to go around during the summer – almost during the whole year – and go to different places around the country and spend time together as a family.”

When the rubber hits the road and the brothers hit the track, does the family dynamic change?

“It’s definitely different on race weekends because he’s the part–team owner but also our dad,” Evan says. “You always, obviously, have a special relationship with your dad, so it’s definitely different than normal, but I like it overall.”

“We have a nice relationship,” Brenden adds. “Sometimes after the race, the first thing you don’t want to do is go talk to your dad. He’ll give us the space we need to let us cool off and talk to our engineers first, and then he’ll wait for us to come and talk to him and just let him know how we’re feeling or anything. It’s nice that he gives us a second to be by ourselves.”

Joshua Cooley is now the chief executive officer of ITI Intermodal, an Illinois-based transport maintenance company, but he also has longstanding ties to racing of his own. He raced dirt ovals in modified stock cars and late models and took both of his sons to the tracks with him, which eventually sparked their own interest in racing – albeit in a different sort of car.

“It played a big role,” Brenden says. “He brought me to the dirt track before I could even walk, so I’ve been around it for a while. It’s kind of funny that we’ve chosen a totally different direction … but we found what we liked and he’s supported us on our way here.”

It began, as Brenden explains, with racing bikes around their neighborhood. Once they moved to southern Illinois, they began going to the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Illinois – now the team’s test track. Soon they too joined their dad in competing at the members-only motorsport complex, which also has a karting circuit.

“When we moved there, he didn’t use it a ton, but we kind of showed interest in it, asked him to take us out there one time. We liked it and ended up getting just two four-stroke go-karts [and] started just club racing there. We obviously progressed really fast,” Evan says.

Evan was 14 when he started testing in karts and 15 when he did his first full season of karting; Brenden was 12. Before long, they were in contact with Duncalfe and preparing for their full-time single-seater moves in 2024.

When Evan stepped up to the YACademy Winter Series ahead of his USF Juniors debut, he came across brothers Rodrigo and Patricio Gonzalez, who were making the transition from karting. They too had multiple family members involved in racing – in their case endurance racing stars.

The Gonzalez brothers – the two younger children of four – are the sons of former sportscar racer Ricardo Gonzalez, the 2013 champion in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s LMP2 class. Their uncle, onetime Champ Car racer Roberto Gonzalez, achieved the same feat nine years later. Their cousin Matias Gonzalez Negri also competes in karting and is approaching his own graduation to cars. 

Rodrigo and Patricio were likewise inspired by their family members to go racing. Patricio started first, aged four, despite being two and a half years younger.

“I actually started racing karts because Patricio started racing karts before me,” Rodrigo says. “So we started off there racing local races, then national championships in Mexico, eventually moving up to race USPKS, SKUSA, ROK right in the US, and then moved on to open-wheel.”

That was in 2024, and Patricio had the edge in the standings, with five top-10 finishes and 124 points to Rodrigo’s one top 10 and 77 points. Now in 2025, with two USF Juniors rounds left, Rodrigo sits seventh and Patricio ninth in the drivers’ standings, on 145 and 101 points respectively.

They have also dovetailed their full USF Juniors campaign with a partial round-by-round campaign in USF2000 calendar that began at Indianapolis in May. Thus far, they have entered all but three rounds in the latter series, with Rodrigo’s best finish an eighth place in the most recent race at Toronto and Patricio’s a ninth place in the first round he contested at Indianapolis.

“The main difference [is] everyone here in USF2000 has a bit more experience,” Rodrigo says. “It’s a little bit harder to race against them – not as easy – and also the difference between the cars. … You can definitely feel the power change, but it’s not that big. The cars drive a little bit different because of the power. It’s a little bit more oversteery, but I don’t think it’s a really big change.”

“The thing I’m struggling with the most are the brakes,” Patricio adds. “[We have] much better brakes right now in USF2000 than USF Juniors.”

The brothers originally found out they’d be making the step up to USF 2000 with DEForce two weeks before Indianapolis, Rodrigo explains. They did so with the intent to ’gather experience for next year [and] come in more prepared’. 

In the meantime, Rodrigo eyes a top five in the USF Juniors standings – he’s currently 50 points away with six rounds left – while Patricio hopes to accumulate as much experience as possible.

They’re taking further steps to achieve that by joining the GB3 Championship beginning next weekend at Silverstone, their first races overseas. Patricio will contest the remaining four rounds of the season for VRD Racing, while Rodrigo is so far confirmed for only the Silverstone round for Chris Dittmann Racing, with more rounds set to follow with another as-yet-unannounced team.

With such parallel racing careers on paper, how do they set themselves apart? 

“Consistency is my main strength,” Rodrigo says. “I can do the same lap time, on and on and on. I think he has the edge on pace, but he’s just as consistent.”

“I’m better in the rain,” Patricio adds. “We are very competitive, but we give each other room in the race. We respect each other.”

“We’re very competitive. We always tease each other. The one who lost always gets picked on, but it’s a good relationship,” Rodrigo says of their relationship as siblings. “At the end, we race fairly against each other. That’s the most important.”

Ricardo Gonzalez still counsels his sons’ careers, offering advice when needed and accompanying them to all the races, and the brothers’ grandfather tries to attend as many races as he can. They base themselves in Mexico City, far from the rest of the USF Juniors paddock, but the distance seems to bring them closer to one another.

“Every weekend we fly together and we do more boys’ trips together,” Patricio says. The brothers say their family ties compel them to compete in endurance racing if their goal of reaching IndyCar doesn’t pan out. 

“Winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans together would be really cool,” Patricio tells Feeder Series as his father watches on from his chair in the DEForce trailer. “My dad and my uncle won them on different teams, but they achieved that. I think that would be pretty cool.” 

The Cooleys aren’t looking to follow their father to ovals. Instead, they come to expand the family legacy, individually and through the Exclusive outfit that has united them.

“Eventually [we could] go to [Indy] NXT with the team or start some partnerships or something,” Evan says. “It would be cool to move up, maybe get into the higher series as well. But for now, we’re going to focus on perfecting what’ve we got running in all three series of the USF Pro Championships.” 

“My main goal is just development,” Brenden says. “I still have many, many years to get to IndyCar, so I want to use those years to develop the most I can and give [myself] the best shot to achieve my dream.”

Header photo credit: Gavin Baker