🏳️ Dean Copeland

Dean Copeland is a semi-professional driver rated 2,909, placing him in the competitive amateur band where drivers compete at the front of club racing and entry-level professional fields. His career spanned six seasons from 2016 to 2021, concentrated entirely in the Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin, where he made 19 starts for Copeland Motorsports. He recorded one victory and five podiums, finishing on average in ninth place. His racing was conducted against a field of drivers clustered around the 3,000 to 3,400 rating, semi-professional competitors in a one-make series; he holds a winning head-to-head record against most of these rivals, including Hernan Palermo, Zachry Lee, and the 2016 series champion Nathanial Sparks.[1]

Copeland's most notable result was his ability to occasionally finish ahead of considerably stronger drivers who passed through the series. He beat Robby Foley, an FIA Gold graded professional and later GT World Challenge America champion, seven times across eleven shared races; he also finished ahead of Patrick Gallagher and Kyle Kaiser, both established professionals rated above 5,200, in isolated races. Against his most frequent rivals in the Mazda Cup itself, Copeland was competitive rather than dominant, beating Palermo and Lee more often than not but falling behind the higher-rated FIA Silver driver Ashton Harrison by a 11-1 margin.

Copeland has been retired from racing since 2021. Recent news items from 2024 and 2025 reference a Copeland Motorsports GR Cup effort, indicating the team's continued activity in other series, though Copeland himself does not appear among the drivers listed for those efforts.