Mac Clark claims pole for USF2000’s sole oval race of the season

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

DEForce Racing’s Mac Clark was the benchmark in USF2000 qualifying on the Indianapolis Raceway Park oval to take pole for the Freedom 75.

The 16-car field went out one at a time, and Exclusive Autosport’s Avery Towns held the fastest two-lap average speed after three drivers had been on track.

Next on was Velocity Racing Development’s Gordon Scully, but for an unexplained reason his car did not register any laptimes when he took to the track and so – as it stands – he qualified last.

Jay Howard Driver Development’s Al Morey was the driver on track after him and he had a slow first lap but a big improvement on his second one meant he went fastest with an advantage of close to 0.1 seconds per lap.

The drivers that followed did not challenge the top, and that included pre-event testing pacesetter Max Garcia, then Exclusive’s Chase Gardner made his pole credentials known by setting the fastest lap so far on his first timed up effort. He went slower on his second one, but it was still enough to put him 0.574s clear of Morey on the combined times.

Threatening his laptimes was Danny Dyszelski, another who was faster on his opening lap and in the end just 0.110s off Gardner across the two laps. They were both then put in their place by Clark who broke into the 22.4s on his first lap.

Rivalling him on a more gripped up track was JHDD’s Evagoras Papasavvas, setting a 22.5s lap followed by a 22.4s that left him just 0.057s off Clark’s two-lap benchmark.

It then came to the championship top three to post their efforts, and they all dissapointed. Nikita Johnson qualfied fifth, Simon Sikes had an unstable looking car and qualified eighth, then points leader Lochie Hughes put himself sixth on the grid.

It took until several hours after qualifying for the results to be published, following an issue with the timing and scoring system that occurred at the end of the session, and the final grid included a two-place grid penalty for Sikes and disqualificatin from the session for Dyszelski.

Qualifying results