Garcia grows USF Pro 2000 lead with dominant Road America win

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Max Garcia has extended his USF Pro 2000 championship lead with a dominant win in the first race of the weekend at Road America.

Garcia got a good start to clearly lead the field away from pole position, but Max Taylor didn’t get away well alongside on the front row and would end up being shuffled back to seventh on the first lap.

Jacob Douglas moved up to second in front of Mac Clark, while Joseph Loake made impressive progress at the start of his first USF Pro 2000 race, climbing immediately from seventh to fourth.

Clark took second from Douglas on lap two but couldn’t stop Garcia from building a gap out front.

The Pabst Racing driver’s lead had grown to 3.8 seconds with a couple of laps to go, at which point it might have been eliminated by a caution after Nicolas Monteiro went off into the gravel.

In the end, the incident was covered by a yellow flag and Garcia finished up 2.3 seconds in front of Clark.

Douglas completed the podium while Alessandro de Tullio passed his Turn 3 Motorsport team-mate Loake midway through to take fourth.

Michael Costello was running sixth at two-thirds distance when he slowed and pitted, handing the place back to Joey Brienza.

Garcia’s closest championship rival Ariel Elkin finished seventh after starting 17th.

Race results (15 laps)