Photo: Gavin Baker Photography
Tanner DeFabis and Noah Ping will make their USF Pro 2000 debuts in this weekend’s season-closing round at Portland.
The pair will drive for Jay Howard Driver Development and Velocity Racing Development respectively, with Ping succeeding his GB3 rivals Shawn Rashid and Nico Christodoulou in VRD’s second entry.
DeFabis, 18, came 24th in United States Formula 4 last year and is currently 15th in the USF2000 standings after doing the first half of the season there with JHDD. While he only got one top-10 finish on a road course, he did take victory and fastest lap in the Freedom 75 which is the championship’s sole oval race.
Ping is also making the step up to the third tier of single-seaters with a team he knows well. He was runner-up in the YACademy Winter Series and third in US F4 with VRD in 2022, then last year took two wins en route to 12th in the GB3 standings with the Arden VRD team.
That alliance continued into 2024, and the 22-year-old sits 13th in the points having only claimed one podium so far.
The track action at Portland began with two test sessions on Thursday, and Pabst Racing’s Simon Sikes topped the first with a 1m08.7901s lap. That put him ahead of VRD’s Nikita Johnson by just 0.0171 seconds, and Turn 3 Motorsport’s Lochie Hughes was only 0.0394s back in third.
Less than half a second covered the top eight, with newcomers Ping and DeFabis in eighth and 16th respectively.
Hughes lowered the pace to 1m08.4315s in the second session, leading Johnson by 0.1081s. Sikes failed to improve and went third fastest, ahead of team-mates Glenn van Berlo and Jace Denmark.
TJ Speed also ran an extra car in testing only for Indy Nxt racer Bryce Aron.
Test results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lochie Hughes | Turn 3 Motorsport | 1m08.4315s | 42 | |
| 2 | Nikita Johnson | Velocity Racing Development | 1m08.5396s | +0.1081s | 40 |
| 3 | Simon Sikes | Pabst Racing | 1m08.7901s | +0.3586s | 48 |
| 4 | Jace Denmark | Pabst Racing | 1m08.9483s | +0.5168s | 48 |
| 5 | Glenn van Berlo | Pabst Racing | 1m08.9774s | +0.5459s | 50 |
| 6 | Danny Dyszelski | Turn 3 Motorsport | 1m09.1929s | +0.7614s | 42 |
| 7 | Alessandro de Tullio | BN Racing | 1m09.1945s | +0.7630s | 43 |
| 8 | Nicholas Monteiro | DEForce Racing | 1m09.2626s | +0.8311s | 43 |
| 9 | Liam Sceats | TJ Speed | 1m09.2847s | +0.8532s | 42 |
| 10 | Noah Ping | Velocity Racing Development | 1m09.2872s | +0.8557s | 43 |
| 11 | Jorge Garciarce | DEForce Racing | 1m09.3878s | +0.9563s | 34 |
| 12 | Bryce Aron | TJ Speed | 1m09.4191s | +0.9876s | 47 |
| 13 | Cooper Becklin | TJ Speed | 1m09.4394s | +1.0079s | 48 |
| 14 | Ricardo Escotto | BN Racing | 1m09.5039s | +1.0724s | 37 |
| 15 | Tyke Durst | Turn 3 Motorsport | 1m09.8305s | +1.3990s | 40 |
| 16 | Frankie Mossman | JHDD | 1m09.8446s | +1.4131s | 32 |
| 17 | Tanner DeFabis | JHDD | 1m10.3450s | +1.9135s | 26 |