![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/zss5qwofkv33pwnm.jpg\")
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – St. Petersburg<\/a> native Nikita Johnson was honored at City Hall Monday after becoming the youngest INDY NXT champion in history.<\/p>\n Honoring a champion <\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n Fresh off capturing the 2026 INDY NXT by Firestone championship with Cape Motorsports Powered by ECR, Johnson was honored by Mayor Ken Welch and community members.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also won Rookie of the Year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local perspective:<\/p>\n Johnson was honored with a “key to the city” Monday and among the fans watching in attendance were students from Thurgood Marshall Fundamental Middle School in South St. Pete.\u00a0<\/p>\n The local middle schoolers, who have supported his journey throughout the season, shared lunch with the champion, snagged autographs, and even got to play reporter during a Q&A session.<\/p>\n First question by the students: What\u2019s next?\u00a0<\/p>\n To answer, Johnson compared the St. Pete Grand Prix to Formula 1\u2019s iconic Monaco Grand Prix Circuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n Johnson already won the St. Pete Grand Prix at the NXT level this year \u2013 and hopes to win it at the highest level in the future. That\u2019s when he wants to start a new tradition.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Hopefully, I can win it next year or in the next few years and jump in the marina,” Johnson told FOX 13. “Because nobody has ever done that. They do that in Monaco, but why don’t we do it here? We are racing on the water. We have all the boats out there, all the yachts. Might as well go jump in and have a little dip. So that’s the plan when I win.”<\/p>\n But he already has plenty of wins to celebrate \u2013 which he\u2019ll do by going fishing, boating, and golfing.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also got a celebratory trip to Yogurtology with his NEW friends \u2014 though the elite athlete keeps his order strictly business.<\/p>\n “Usually, I like strawberry and vanilla. Strawberry-vanilla or chocolate-vanilla,” Johnson laughed. “I skip the toppings because that’s too much weight. I don’t want to pay like 50 cents more or whatever. Plus, I don’t want to get diabetes.”<\/p>\n The Source: Information for this story came from interviews with Nikita Johnson and young people at the city of St. Petersburg event.<\/p>\n St. Petersburg<\/a>Sports<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – St. Petersburg native Nikita Johnson was honored at City Hall Monday after becoming the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[47,115,1157,110,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-399927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-sports","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vlcsnap-2026-09-14-17h02m12s912.png\")
Inspiring the next generation\u00a0 <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/vlcsnap-2026-09-14-17h01m57s510.png\")
Future goals <\/p>\n