Colton Herta – America's next racing hero

Last Sunday, Colton Herta demolished his IndyCar opposition in the second round of the season. David Malsher-Lopez explains why Andretti Autosport’s youngest ace bears all the hallmarks of becoming the country’s next homegrown motorsport hero.

David Malsher-Lopez Apr 29, 2021, 4:39 PM

Sporting heroes are often forgiven for braggadocio. Even the so-called humble brag, that tends to be emitted only by those too stupid to realize that objective members of the watching and listening world sees right through them, will be overlooked by the fawning fan.

Then there is the more self-aware sports star who goes too far in the opposite direction, and sounds so obsequious and modest regarding his peers or betters that it comes across as false – especially when one knows that behind the scenes, said character actually behaves like his or her effluence smells sweeter.

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Author David Malsher-Lopez

David Malsher-Lopez is Motorsport.com’s U.S. editor, covering the NTT IndyCar Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Since completing journalism college in 1994, he has worked for Autosport, TRMG, Motor Sport, Autosport (again) and Racer, before joining Motorsport.com in 2015… where he has found himself enjoying a third spell writing for Autosport. Over the course of those 27 years, he has served as a journalist, sub-editor, features editor, deputy editor and editor. In 2015, he also wrote Will Power’s biography. David lives with his wife Sophia in California and when not writing about racing, he will be found reading about planes and classic cars, attending airshows, listening to a wide variety of music or watching cop shows from the ’70s. He intends to one day own a grand piano, an Airedale terrier and a vintage Pontiac. He doesn’t do Facebook and doesn’t understand Instagram but can be found @DavidMalsher on Twitter.