Alessandro de Tullio wins USF Pro 2000’s 350th race

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Turn 3 Motorsport’s Alessandro de Tullio kept cool to win at NOLA Motorsports Park in USF Pro 2000’s first race of the weekend and the 350th in series history.

Pabst Racing’s poleman Max Garcia held the lead into turn one on the opening lap, and team-mate Jacob Douglas made an attack from third but ended up compromising himself and falling behind other team-mate Michael Costello and Exclusive Autosport’s Mac Clark.

De Tullio occupied second place, but on lap two moved into the lead and left Garcia having to messily fight off Costello through the final corners.

The leader went 1.7 seconds clear on lap three, and had a gap of 1.9s before Garcia began his fightback on lap seven. It took until lap 13 for him to get within a second of de Tullio, then he slashed the gap to three quarters of a second.

De Tullio responded on lap 15, but only really by matching Garcia’s pace and preventing him from getting any closer. It worked, as Garcia was not near enough to think about overtaking.

While de Tullio won by 0.808s, making up for crashing out of race two in St. Petersburg after winning race one there, Garcia celebrated extending his points lead.

Costello fell into a battle for fifth on lap three, promoting Clark to a podium spot ahead of Douglas. TJ Speed’s Ariel Elkin also got ahead of Costello, and then the race calmed down.

Clark finished 7.54s behind the winner and a second ahead of Douglas, with Elkin trailing him home.

A lack of pace meant meant Costello was a further eight seconds back in sixth, ahead of Velocity Racing Development’s Max Taylor.

Aside from the top two, the only other ongoing battle was for 11th between Frankie Mossman (Jay Howard Driver Development), Logan Adams (Comet/NCMP Racing) and Cooper Becklin (Turn 3). That was won by Adams after making a pass on lap 16.

VRD’s Owen Tangavelou finished the race a lap down in last, having gone off and then pitted on the opening lap.

Race results (18 laps)