Heading into Road America, Braydon Arthur finds himself right where he wants to be. The 23-year-old driver is now within striking distance of the TC America powered by Skip Barber Racing championship lead, with momentum on his side after a lengthy summer break. But for the driver of the No. 4 JMF Motorsports Toyota GR Corolla TC, the story of this season has never just been about the number in the points column. It has been about a career built one step at a time and a family that has been rallying behind him since long before he ever climbed into a race car.
Arthur trails Andre Castro, the championship leader, by a mere 10 points, the tightest the standings have been all year, after he swept both races at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta to erase a 30-point deficit in a single weekend.
“I think overall it’s been a really strong year,” Arthur said. “We’ve shown that we’re pretty much fast anywhere we’ve gone. Sebring was a little rough for us just with mechanical issues, but you can’t win ‘em all. We’ve been figuring out where we were slower early on compared to the Hyundais and the Acuras, and now we were able to capitalize and make plans moving forward into the next few rounds. I think we’ve got a package together now that is really strong.”
That progress has been years in the making. Arthur’s path to this championship fight began with a partial GR Cup season in 2024, which was a jump from his previous club racing and F4 experience. The move to GT4 the following year proved even bigger, developing alongside Aston Martin factory driver Mike David Ortmann and absorbing everything he could about a professional’s approach both inside and outside the car.
“It helped me prep a little bit more and go into this year with more professionalism and confidence. With the backing from JMF Motorsports and CieloVision, who have been fantastic this year, I’ve really been able to just focus on my driving and not really have to worry about anything else.”
The relationship with JMF Motorsports traces back to a chance encounter at an F4 test in Sonoma, California, in late 2023. Danny Kok, the JMF Motorsports CEO, recognized Arthur’s name, a connection rooted in the fact that Arthur’s grandfather had helped Danny along early in his own racing career.
“That’s how I got into JMF, but as soon as I was welcomed in, everyone felt like a big family, and it is still like that.”
Arthur’s grandparents have been around racing since the 1960s and his own introduction to the sport and learning experience came working on his older brother’s race car alongside his father, mother and sisters. It was his father, he said, who instilled the mental approach that has carried him through both the highs of this season and its lone significant setback at Sebring.
“My dad was a very big advocate for tuning out all the mishaps and the small things. It’s very easy to focus on all the bad things and let that dictate your season, so what my dad would always say to my brother and I was, ‘Whether you have a bad day or a good day at the track doesn’t matter. Always go to bed thinking of the good things and only think of the good things, as little as they are.’ Sebring was very disappointing, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time, I was taught at a very young age that it’s okay and things are going to go wrong and you’ll always bounce back from it. That’s all you can do.”
That perspective now shapes how Arthur is approaching the second half of the season with the gap to Andre Castro.
“We have a good car, we have a good team behind us, we’re set in the right path and I think we just need to play it smart. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. You’re right in the championship hunt, so contact costs us points and that’s going to be the biggest detriment to us. Just making sure we have clean, consistent races is what matters. Maybe it means I will come second or third a couple times, but it’s just about making sure we get points rather than trying too hard for a win and losing it all.”
Arthur believes Road America is the right stage for that balance of composure and speed. The long straights and fast, technical sections make it a demanding circuit, but he is careful not to lose sight of why he races in the first place.
“A lot of people, especially in pro racing, forget to have fun. As much as it is a business, it’s still very much fun to me. Everyone under our tent, and myself specifically, we’re still having a lot of fun. So Road America is one of those tracks, to me, where you drive it and there’s a lot of long straights and a lot of fast points, but being able to do that as well as hunt for the championship, it’s going to be a rewarding feeling once the weekend is over, no matter what happens.”
During the extended summer break, Arthur chose to intentionally slow down and ‘calm his brain.’ Between his shifts at his day job working at a race shop, he spent the break reviewing video and notes from the first half of the season.
“As much as I want to say I’ve been training and working out a lot, I’ve actually been taking the other approach where it’s just relaxing and trying to calm my brain down. Working at the shop helps soothe my brain because it’s what I also love doing. I get to have a ‘zen mode’ during that time. Then I’ll go home and work out there but for the most part, I’m just trying to stay nice and calm. I was taking the whole summer to go over all of my video from the start of the year and analyze my notes from the race weekends.”
Should that preparation translate into a championship by season’s end, Arthur is clear about what it would represent, and who it would be for. Beyond his own family, he points to a broader racing community back home in British Columbia, along with sponsors who have made his season possible.
“There’s not much for pro drivers that come out of Western Canada growing up at the track. I’ve known quite a few people from the area and they want nothing more than the talent on this side of the country to showcase themselves. I think we’re starting to get to a point where that’s the reality now, which is really cool. If we were able to clinch the title, I don’t even know how I would feel for myself, for my grandparents, for my mom and dad, my brothers and sisters. The team and sponsors would be ecstatic, I know that. It would mean so much to so many different people.”
To see Braydon Arthur and JMF Motorsports fight for the TC America championship as the season resumes at Road America, be sure to get your tickets now!
