Engineer at the wheel and pilot on the podium
In American motorsport, it is rare to find a debutant who consistently climbs to the podium from the first season. Even rarer is a team where the engineer himself gets behind the wheel of the car he has assembled to check the settings in combat conditions. This is exactly how the WOW Automotive project is structured. Vitaliy Ledenev and Oleksiy Badikov are two Ukrainians who, in their debut season in the USA, collected more than twenty podiums in SCCA, NASA and Apex on two fundamentally different cars.
STARTING IN A NEW ENVIRONMENT
The 2025 season was WOW Automotive’s first in American competitions. Both participants have experience in Ukrainian motorsport, but not on American tracks. Eagle Canyon Raceway, Motorsport Ranch Cresson, Hallett Motor Racing Circuit are all new facilities, studied from scratch. The rivals had 5–10 years of experience on these tracks.
American Time Attack and Time Trials series – SCCA, NASA, Apex – unite on one site participants with fundamentally different budgets and levels of training. Pilots with professional engineering teams are neighbors next to those who arrived in a semi-prepared civilian car. This makes victory in the class and, especially, in the overall standings a truly significant result.
New tracks, new series, new rivals – and already in the first season, more than twenty podium finishes.
VITALIY LEDENEV: AN ENGINEER WHO CHECKS HISSELF
Within WOW Automotive, Vitaly Ledenev holds a position that is rarely found in professional motorsport: he is both a technical project manager and a driver. He is responsible for the production, tuning and adaptation of cars to the requirements of each specific series and track configuration. And he is the one who gets behind the wheel to test the results of his work in real competition conditions.
The platform that Ledenev is preparing and piloting is a 2006 Aston Martin Vantage. The choice is not trivial: there are practically no similar cars in the NASA, SCCA and Apex grids. WOW Automotive is the only participant in the current championships with such a car. This means the lack of reference data, ready-made tuning cards and experienced mechanics to whom one can turn for advice. Each tuning is the result of one’s own analysis and experimentation.
Therefore, the Aston Martin on Time Attack is not an aesthetic choice. It is an engineering challenge that Ledenov consciously accepted.
The approach paid off in numbers. According to the results of the 2025–2026 seasons, Vitaly Ledenev collected 13 podium finishes in the Aston Martin Vantage in three different series and four classes.
The breakdown of results reflects consistency throughout both seasons. In 2025: a win at Eagle Canyon Raceway (Apex, LA-4), two wins at Hallett (Apex, LA-4 CW and CCW), a win and a second place in SCCA at Motorsport Ranch and Eagle Canyon (MAX3 class), a win at NASA at Cresson 1. In 2026: a second place at Eagle Canyon and Cresson 1.7 at Apex (LA4), two third places at NASA at Cresson (TT3), a win and a second place in SCCA at Cresson 1.3 (U1).
The engineering context gives these results special value: Ledenev worked with a car for which there is no racing culture, as in American series. Every time he climbed the podium, he confirmed the correctness of his technical decisions.
OLEKSII BADIKOV: STABILITY AS THE MAIN QUALITY OF A PILOT
Alexey Badikov competes in a 2008 Chevrolet Corvette. Unlike the Aston Martin, the Corvette is a familiar platform for American track racing. This means that the competition in the class is higher, and the advantage can only be gained through aerobatics and precision tuning.
For a driver who first entered American tracks in 2025, the statistics look exceptional: 10 podium finishes in two seasons, 9 of which were victories. Not a single season without victories in the class. And one result that goes beyond the class statistics: victory in the overall standings of the SCCA stage in the Cresson 1.7 – the fastest time among all participants regardless of class and car power.
The podium route spans multiple tracks and series. In 2025: second place at Eagle 2.7 (Time Attack), two wins at Hallett (Time Attack), four SCCA wins at Cresson (including overall), NASA TT2 win at Cresson 1.7. In 2026, a NASA TT2 win at the same track was confirmed.
Winning the SCCA overall standings is the fastest lap of all, without class adjustments.
Stability is indicative: Oleksiy Badikov did not win a single stage by chance. He climbed to the podium regularly – on different tracks, in different series and in different conditions. This is a quality that is valued more than individual brilliance in motorsport.
DISTRIBUTION OF ROLES AS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
WOW Automotive is built on a clear separation of functions. Vitaliy Ledenev bears full technical responsibility: from production and tuning to collecting data from race results and making changes to the design. His piloting of his own car is not a parallel activity, but part of the engineering process: direct collection of information about the car’s behavior that cannot be obtained in any other way.
Badikov realizes the potential of the prepared car in competition conditions. His task is to squeeze the most out of the car and the track, concentrating exclusively on aerobatics. This division allows each project participant to operate in the area of his greatest competence.
The result of this model is noticeable: in total, over two seasons, the project has collected more than twenty prize finishes in three professional American series. This is an atypical story for debutants.
Also follow “Pryamim” on Facebook , X , Telegram , and Instagram.