Brooks sets the pace in USF Pro 2000 practice at NOLA

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Christian Brooks topped the times in practice for the second round of the 2024 USF Pro 2000 season at NOLA Motorsports Park.

The Pabst Racing driver topped the times early in the session, but spent most of practice in second place behind team-mate Jace Denmark.  

A late flying lap for Brooks allowed him to jump back ahead on the timing screen, with his 1m31.3966s effort just 0.0031 seconds faster than Denmark’s benchmark.

Velocity Racing Development’s Nikita Johnson was third quickest ahead of Pabst’s Simon Sikes and BN Racing’s Ricardo Escotto. He was half a second off the pace, and within 0.1s of him were TJ Speed’s Liam Sceats and DEForce Racing’s Nicholas Monteiro.

It was an incident-free session, running green throughout, and most of the drivers managed to get at least a dozen laps completed. One driver that didn’t was Monteiro. He spent most of practice in the pits, only managing to get out in the last nine minutes of the 25-minute session. His first flying lap was enough to put him straight into eighth place, and he improved one position by the chequered flag. 

Turn 3 Motorsport’s early points leader Lochie Hughes could only go ninth fastest, setting his fastest lap early in the session. He placed just ahead of DEForce’s Mac Clark, who rounded out the top 10.

The drivers who raced in the season-opening St. Petersburg round but were absent from practice at NOLA were Nicolas Baptiste, Avery Towns (who is racing part-time in USF2000 but not confirmed which later rounds he will do) and Shawn Rashid.

Free practice results