Photo: Gavin Baker Photography
Jay Howard Driver Development’s Liam McNeilly dominated USF2000’s second qualifying session at NOLA Motorsports Park.
He led the field from the off, setting a 1m34.786s to go a second clear of everyone else on his first flying lap. His team-mate Brad Majman then slashed his advantage to 0.892 seconds, and four minutes in Exclusive Autosport’s Jack Jeffers got within 0.233s of McNeilly with his opening attempt and team-mates Evan Cooley and Lucas Fecury joined him in beating Majman.
McNeilly lowered the pace to 1m34.401s on his second lap, and Pabst Racing’s G3 Argyros immediately got within 0.031s of the new benchmark. Jeffers was 0.15s off, as Velocity Racing Development duo Teddy Musella and Thomas Schrage also broke the 1m35s barrier along with Majman.
The third flying laps led to change at the top, with Schrage posting a 1m34.290s and Jeffers then beating it with a 1m34.143s.
Drivers were soon heading into the pits to change tyres, and during this period Pabst’s Caleb Gafrarar moved into fifth with a 1m34.599s lap.
McNeilly returned to first place on his second run, completing his fourth flying lap in 1m34.119s to provisionally claim a double pole since the fastest laps set race two’s grid and drivers’ second-best laptimes set the grid for race three.
Cooley rose to fourth from outside of the top 10 with six-and-a-half minutes to go, posting a 1m34.335s, and shortly after VRD’s Christian Cameron jumped up to sixth with a 1m34.543s.
That demoted Gafrarar to seventh, but he responded by setting a 1m34.233s and going third fastest. Jeffers was able to improve on his second-best laptime, while McNeilly had more pace in hand and set a new personal best of 1m33.453s to create a huge gap at the top of the times and set a new track record.
Cooley quickly slashed McNeilly’s gap to 0.367s and Schrage improved to 1m33.855s to leave Jeffers in fourth.
At that point the fight for pole was over, and McNeilly ensured race three was in his hands (unless somebody sets faster lap in race two) by lowering his second-best laptime to 1m33.498s late on.
Cameron went sixth fastest with four-and-a-half minutes left of qualifying, then Argyros improved in fifth. Majman soon climbed from 11th to fourth with a 1m34.134s, but a minute later Argyros broke into the 1m33s to take fourth and DEForce Racing’s Jeshua Alianell beat him too.
After the chequered flag he was knocked down to seventh, as successive improvements brought Musella up to fifth place.
Qualifying round-up
Race 2 grid
1 Liam McNeilly JHDD 1m33.453s
2 Evan Cooley Exclusive Autosport +0.367s
3 Thomas Schrage Velocity Racing Development +0.402s
4 G3 Argyros Pabst Racing +0.538s
5 Teddy Musella Velocity Racing Development +0.545s
6 Jeshua Alianell DEForce Racing +0.596s
7 Brad Majman JHDD +0.681s
8 Jack Jeffers Exclusive Autosport +0.690s
9 Christian Cameron Velocity Racing Development +0.766s
10 Caleb Gafrarar Pabst Racing +0.780s
Race 3 grid
1 McNeilly 1m33.498s
2 Schrage +0.495s
3 Argyros +0.586s
4 Cooley +0.631s
5 Jeffers +0.668s
6 Majman +0.684s
7 Musella +0.734s
8 Gafrarar +0.780s
9 Cameron +0.805s
10 Alianell +1.018s