Garcia drags crabbing car to pits after putting it on pole in USF Pro 2000

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Max Garcia nailed down pole position early in USF Pro 2000 qualifying at NOLA Motorsports Park, then picked up suspension damage which almost cost him it.

The broken part on the rear-left of his car, which sent the front-right into the air and led to the car crabbing as he tried to drive it, slowed him down significantly and had he stopped on track and caused a red flag interruption he would have lost his fastest lap.

But the Pabst Racing driver did manage to return to the pits without assistance, and so will start race one of the weekend from pole.

Early in the 20-minute session it was TJ Speed’s trio of drivers who set the pace, with Ariel Elkin laying down a 1m31.875s benchmark.

He was soon down in fifth, as Exclusive Autosport’s Mac Clark lowered the pace to 1m30.963s and Garcia, Joey Brienza (Exclusive) and Jacob Douglas (Pabst) all lapped in the 1m31s.

Late to complete his first flying lap was Turn 3 Motorsport’s Alessandro de Tullio, and it put him to the top by 0.342 seconds.

Elkin got within 0.111s of that on his second lap, as Velocity Racing Development’s Owen Tangavelou demoted Clark to fourth and team-mate Max Taylor rose to fifth, then five minutes in Pabst’s Michael Costello reduced de Tullio’s gap by a thousandth of a second while Garcia went fifth fastest.

Garcia’s third lap beat de Tullio’s first, except the provisional poleman had now set a second which was an even faster 1m30.053s. Elkin improved to 1m30.452s and Costello to 1m30.582s in third and fourth, with Douglas and Brienza sneaking ahead of Tangavelou.

Seven minutes in came another new personal best from de Tullio, as he completed his third lap in 1m29.886s. Garcia could only find a 0.005s gain in response, but two laps later and with seven-and-a-half minutes left of qualifying he beat de Tullio by 0.023s. There was now a 0.342s gap to third, which Costello was occupying.

It was a record-breaking lap from Garcia, and looked unbeatable. Douglas moved up to fourth and then third with successive improvements, getting within 0.004s of de Tullio as Garcia put pole truly out of everyone else’s reach with a 1m29.784s set with five-and-a-half minutes still left on the clock.

Elkin and Taylor set personal bests in fifth and sixth at that point, and were the last two drivers within a second of Garcia’s pace.

While the poleman dragged his car back to the pits, there were still drivers reaching new landmarks on lower fuel. Clark and Tangavelou made sizeable gains in pace to slot into sixth and seventh with three-and-a-half mintues to go, and de Tullio squeezed 0.031s more out of his car.

Qualifying results