Garcia ends USF Pro 2000 title run with ninth victory

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Max Garcia ended his title-winning rookie USF Pro 2000 season at Portland with his ninth victory, as Ariel Elkin snatched second in the standings.

The champion started from pole, for the ninth time this year, as his second-best laptime from qualifying earned him first place on the race two grid by 0.0428 seconds over Exclusive Autosport’s Mac Clark.

Velocity Racing Development’s Frankie Mossman was only 0.0526s off pole in third, then 0.0162s split Alessandro de Tullio (Turn 3 Motorsport), Jacob Douglas (Pabst) and Max Taylor (VRD) in the next three places. Taylor was 0.2589s slower than Garcia and the last driver who qualified with a sub-1m08s lap, with TJ Speed’s Elkin next up in seventh.

Clark, who began the race second in the championship, was put on the back foot after attempting to fight Garcia heading into the opening corner. Contact as the field compressed into the corner left Clark with front wing damage and he went a lap down after pitting. But he continued in the pursuit of unlapping himself.

The pace car was brought out on lap eight after TJ Speed’s Miles Bromley went into the turn 11 barriers. Racing resumed on lap 12, only for a turn one incident to trigger another caution period.

Four drivers had attempted to go side-by-side, leading to widespread damage and Turn 3’s Brady Golan going into the barriers. VRD’s Max Taylor was among those caught, and dropped to the back after pitting for repairs.

Racing resumed on lap 16, and this time the field went single file through the first corners.

Garcia was now followed by de Tullio, Elkin, Mossman and the lapped Clark. As Elkin defended against Mossman and Clark, Garcia and de Tullio were able to pull away in the race’s second half and a mistake-free Garcia won by 6.948s.

De Tullio finished over 14s clear of the fight for third, which Douglas joined and a lapped Taylor got involved in.

Clark and Taylor found a way past Mossman, then unlapped themselves on Elkin shortly afterwards as they battled each other for 11th. Taylor won their duel, leaving Clark hoping that Elkin would lose places to be championship runner-up.

Mossman briefly got ahead of Elkin with a move around the outside, only to slip backwards late in the race and finish ninth. Douglas was the next to take on Elkin, and overtook him to complete the podium.

Sebastian Manson could not get close enough to his team-mate to take fourth from him, and Elkin met the chequered flag one point ahead of Clark in the standings.

Exclusive Autosport’s Carson Etter came up behind the TJ Speed drivers late on but had a limited chance of making up further ground after starting 15th. He finished sixth, ahead of DEForce Racing’s Jorge Garciarce and Turn 3’s early pitter Tyke Durst.

Joey Brienza had an eventful race. The Exclusive Autosport driver was in the incident that caused the second caution period, then after serving a drive-through penalty finished 10th.

Race results (30 laps)