McNeilly leads Jeffers again in USF2000’s second St. Pete race

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Liam McNeilly led home Jack Jeffers again in the second USF2000 race on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Jeffers started fourth, but the Exclusive Autosport driver made a great start to immediately take third and then he went around the outside of Pabst Racing’s front-row starter Caleb Gafrarar at turn one to take second place.

He kept McNeilly in touching distance through the first few laps, but from lap four onwards the leader began to pull away. That margin grew until Jeffers was 1.8 seconds behind, then his decision to only use one set of tyres in qualifying paid off. He began closing back in, but in the last two laps McNeilly added to his lead and finished 2.7672s clear for his second win of the weekend.

Gafrarar had a quiet run to third, avoiding pressure from DEForce Racing’s Sebastian Garzon and McNeilly’s Jay Howard Driver Development team-mate Brad Majman.

Velocity Racing Development’s Thomas Schrage had an up-and-down race, starting 16th and ending lap one in 11th. He passed Synergy Motorsport’s Eddie Beswick for 10th on lap two, than moved up to ninth on lap three. Pabst’s G3 Argyros demoted him back to 10th on lap six, but Schrage then returned to ninth a lap later.

In the race’s second half he got up to seventh, a position he had to pass team-mate Teddy Musella for, and was on Evan Cooley’s tail through the last lap. The Exclusive Autosport driver held him off by a quarter of a second.

Beswick had car problems that meant he dropped down the order and later coasted around the track at an unrepresentative pace.

Race results (20 laps)