With the 2025 running of the IMSA Rolex 24 at Daytona just weeks away, Hagerty (the official insurance partner of the SCCA®) recently looked back at the 2024 event, where Hagerty Drivers Foundation partnered with the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America and its SPARK (Students Preserving American Racing Knowledge) initiative to place a student in a real-world motorsports environment.

“SPARK serves as a gateway for high school, trade school, and college-aged students to discover careers in motorsports via mentoring programs, and at-track experiences,” Hagerty said in its announcement. “It opens the door for internships with leading organizations while documenting and preserving the rich motorsports heritage in the U.S. Whatever the career goal is of participating students – technical, medical, marketing, logistics, team and track operations, event planning, or otherwise, SPARK ensures that the students have a competitive edge that best equips them for life and drives their future success.”

In 2024, that student was Parker Rossman. “Rossman, then a senior at North Florida University in Jacksonville, embedded with Lone Star Racing at January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona,” Hagerty’s press release explained. “Rossman was primarily assigned to assist the team’s tire specialist and learned a great deal about what it takes to literally keep a modern-day GT3 racing machine – and himself – rolling for 24 hours of non-stop competition. It’s this kind of experience, and the ability to help young people interested in the automotive world, that drove the partnership between the Hagerty Drivers Foundation and the .”

While it was not stated in the announcement, it’s notable that Rossman is also an SCCA member. Becoming a Buccaneer Region member of the SCCA around the time of his SPARK experience, Rossman has since participated in several SCCA events, including at multiple Central Florida Region autocrosses in the CAM class. Rossman also drove the Osprey Racing Swoop D12 Formula SAE car in the autocross portion of FSAE’s Michigan IC Competition in 2024, which is in part supported by SCCA Foundation.

Read Hagerty’s Drivers Foundation announcement.

Photo courtesy Motorsports Hall of Fame of America