The Team That Runs My Season Just Raced the Pros

I was at CTMP this past weekend, and for once I was not the one with the nerves.

A few weeks ago I raced my Radical here in a regional weekend. This time I was back at the same track as a spectator, watching IMSA, the top level of sports car racing in North America. And out there among the professionals were two names I know very well. Travis and Trevor Hill. The brothers who run TWOth Autosport. The team that runs my season.

If you have read anything else on this blog, you know the whole shiftgate story leans on one claim: that I signed with an experienced team who knew how to bring a driver up the right way. This past weekend that claim was not a line in a pitch. It was on the timing sheet.

Two brothers, one car

Here is the part that got me. Travis and Trevor shared a car this weekend.

TWOth stands for the two th's, Travis and Trevor Hill. They have been at this since they were kids, karting before they were teenagers, racing since the late nineties, and running their own team since 2010. Trevor is usually the one you find under the car, the technical director and engineer who makes everything work. This weekend he climbed in and drove, sharing the number 22 Shopify Racing Porsche with his brother in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge GS class.

Travis did double duty. On top of the Porsche, he raced the team's LMP3 prototype, the number 2 Shopify Racing Ligier, in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge sprint races.

The whole thing runs under a banner that still makes me smile when I see it on the bodywork: Shopify Racing powered by TWOth.

The ladder just got official

Alongside the IMSA program, Shopify Racing powered by TWOth announced something that outlasts any single race result. They put the ladder in writing. It is called the Shopify Racing Development Ladder, and it is a real driver development system, built to take someone from their first time in a race car all the way to professional prototypes.

It grew out of one story. Toby Lütke came to TWOth with no racing background and one goal, to race at Le Mans. TWOth built the pathway that took him from a Miata in 2016 to an LMP2 car at Le Mans in 2026. Once that pathway worked, Toby and TWOth opened it to other drivers instead of keeping it to one.

The ladder has four rungs. SpecMiata to learn racecraft. Radical for the jump into downforce and prototypes. GT for sports car machinery. LMP3 at the top, pointed at LMP2 and Le Mans.

Here is the part that still does not feel real. I am on it. When they listed the 2026 Radical drivers, my name was on the sheet. François Côté, second rung of an official development ladder that ends at Le Mans.

I have spent this whole blog describing a ladder you mostly had to take my word for. This week it got a name, a structure, and a published list of drivers. I am one of them now.

Why this matters for what we are building

When I tell people shiftgate is built with a team that knows how to develop drivers, this past weekend is what I mean.

The people who set up my debriefs, who built my season plan, who taught me how a regional weekend even works, were the same people out there racing wheel to wheel with the best on the continent. The team that brings amateurs up the ladder was out climbing it themselves, in public, at the highest level.

That is not a marketing story. It was a timing sheet, a Porsche in Shopify Racing colours, and two brothers sharing a car at their home race.

If you were anywhere near Bowmanville, I hope you caught it. If you were not, the IMSA replay is worth your time. Look for the number 2 Ligier and the number 22 Porsche, and the name that reads the same as the team building my season.

Sources: IMSA and TWOth Autosport announced the 2026 Shopify Racing powered by TWOth IMSA programs; Shopify Racing powered by TWOth announced the Shopify Racing Development Ladder and its 2026 driver roster. [Links to be added on publish.]