Lee Bentham (born July 27, 1970) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

former racing driver from

Richmond Hill, Ontario Richmond Hill (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 202,022) is a city in south-central Regional Municipality of York, York Region, Ontario, Canada. Part of the Greater Toronto Area, it is the York Region's third most populous municipality and th ...

. In 1990 and 1992 he competed in the Formula K

karting Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on f ...

World Championship series. He moved to cars in the

Toyota Atlantic The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

series in 1995 in a successful partial-season program that managed to place Bentham on the podium twice and finished 8th in points. The following year Bentham captured 7 podiums and was the series runner-up. 1997 was less successful as he only finished 5th in series points. He also competed for Forsythe Racing in the

Indy Lights Indy NXT, previously Indy Lights, is an American developmental automobile racing series sanctioned by IndyCar, currently known as Firestone Indy NXT Series for sponsorship reasons. Indy Lights is the highest step on the Road to Indy, a program ...

series that season and won on the oval at

Gateway International Raceway World Wide Technology Raceway (formerly Gateway International Raceway and Gateway Motorsports Park) is a motorsport racing facility in Madison, Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri, United States, close to the Gateway Arch. It features a o ...

and finished 5th in points. 1998 was Bentham's breakout year as he captured three wins and seven podiums on his way to the Toyota Atlantic Championship for

Forsythe Championship Racing Forsythe/Pettit Racing was an American racing team that competed in the Champ Car World Series owned by Gerald Forsythe and Dan Pettit. The Champ Car effort ceased operations after the 2008 unification of North American open wheel racing. Histor ...

. 1999 was his final year of top-level racing and was another year in Atlantics where he won a single race and finished 6th in points. Since 2012, Bentham has been the Driver Development Coach for

Ed Carpenter Racing Ed Carpenter Racing is an American racing team based in Speedway, Indiana that currently competes in the IndyCar Series. The team is owned by driver Ed Carpenter. The team is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and currently fields the No. 20 Dal ...

in the IndyCar series, having previously coached

Josef Newgarden Josef Nicolai Newgarden (born December 22, 1990) is an American race car driver who competes in the IndyCar Series full-time for Team Penske. He is the 2017 and 2019 IndyCar Series Champion and 2011 Indy Lights champion. Career Karting Newga ...

External links

Driver Database Profile
1970 births Living people Atlantic Championship drivers Indy Lights drivers Racing drivers from Ontario Sportspeople from Richmond Hill, Ontario {{Canada-autoracing-bio-stub Forsythe Racing drivers