New signing Jeffers and McNeilly top USF2000 test sessions at NOLA

Photo: YACademy Winter Series

Exclusive Autosport’s new signing Jack Jeffers and Jay Howard Driver Development’s Liam McNeilly topped USF2000’s first pre-season test sessions at NOLA Motorsports Park.

Earlier this week, Exclusive announced the addition of Evan Cooley and Jeffers to its 2025 line-up.

Cooley, 18, drove for Exclusive at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last year and was rapid, starting on pole for both races and setting the fastest lap in them too. But he met the chequered flag in third and 15th. He appeared again in Toronto and took a fourth place finish.

His primary programme with the team was USF Juniors, where he came 13th in the points with three top-five finishes, and he has come third and second in the past two seasons of the YACademy Winter Series for USF Juniors cars.

Jeffers, also 18, was the 2022 Lucas Oil Formula Car Race Series and 2024 YACademy WS champion. He has made a USF2000 cameo in each of the last two years, with an eighth place being his best result, but has primarily raced one step below in USF Juniors.

In 2023 he came third in the standings with three wins, six other podiums and four poles, then slipped to fifth in the points last year with six podiums but no wins.

The step up to USF2000 full-time looks like it could serve him well, as he kicked off Spring Training with the fastest lap in session one. A 1m33.5891s effort put him 0.1937 seconds ahead of Pabst Racing’s Caleb Gafrarar and 0.2878s up on McNeilly.

Everyone else was more than half a second off the pace, but it was tightly contested in the midfield as 0.344s split Velocity Racing Development’s Teddy Musella in fourth and Benchmark Autosport’s Ayrton Houk down in 11th. Synergy Motorsport’s Eddie Beswick, an Australian driver-and-team combination who are both new to USF2000, propped up the timesheet in 18th place with a best lap 2.7977s slower than Jeffers’.

The laptimes in session two, which like the first was 45 minutes long, were marginally quicker and McNeilly lowered the pace slightly to 1m33.4255s. He pipped Jeffers by 0.0445s, and Cooley was a further 0.1306s behind in third.

Gafrarar made a tiny improvement to be 0.3s back in fourth, and JHDD’s Brad Majman was the last driver to break the 1m34s barrier. A second covered the top 12, and all but three drivers set new personal bests.

Day one results