Photo: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Braden Eves extended his USF2000 lead by winning the second race at Road America, following Hunter McElrea’s maiden success.
McElrea hold off Pabst Racing team-mate Colin Kaminsky in a duel for his first victory, taking the lead with an early move at Turn 1, as multiple cars were caught up in a first corner incident.
Cape Motorsports? Darren Keane was left limping back to the pits while Legacy Autosport’s Alex Baron was also involved.
Having been one of those who had benefited most from the incident at the start, Christian Rasmussen was taken out with just a handful of laps remaining in an incident with Jak Crawford.?The latter earned himself a 30-second penalty for the crash, dropping him to 14th.
Championship leader Eves finished fourth for Cape, 0.498 seconds behind Newman Wachs Racing’s Cameron Shields.
McElrea led Eves into Turn 1 from his race two pole position as the field emerged unscathed from the first few corners.
Eves then forced his way into the lead, with the battle for the positions behind heating up in the final laps. In total, four of the top six traded places – with Keane relieving McElrea of second on the penultimate lap. Kaminsky finished fourth.
Third for McElrea means he’s now 41 points behind Eves, who has picked up five wins this season.
Matt Round-Garrido joined BN Racing from Jay Howard Driver Development ahead of Road America, and qualified an impressive eighth for race two. He was shoved wide halfway through the opening lap, but managed to remain in the top 10, while team-mate Anthony Famularo had his race ended just a few laps in by a car problem.
Championship frontrunners Baron and Manuel Sulaiman both disappointed after clashing into each other, meaning they are now around 100 points behind Eves.
Christian Rasmussen had fought his way up to second in race two until a spin at Turn 5 relegated him back to fifth.
Results round-up
Race 1 (12 laps)
1 Hunter McElrea Pabst Racing 26m16.0432s
2 Colin Kaminsky Pabst Racing +3.5352s
3 Cameron Shields Newman Wachs Racing +4.3421s
4 Braden Eves Cape Motorsports +4.8401s
5 Manuel Sulaiman DEForce Racing +7.0456s
6 Bruna Tomaselli Pabst Racing +15.3371s
7 Yuven Sundaramoorthy Pabst Racing +20.4097s
8 Reece Gold Cape Motorsports +20.6873s
9 Eduardo Barrichello Miller Vinatieri Motorsports +21.5012s
10 Nolan Siegel Newman Wachs Racing +34.7268s
Pole: Kaminsky, 2m10.2675s
Fastest lap: Eves, 2m10.5846s
Race 2 (12 laps)
1 Eves 26m20.4264s
2 Darren Keane Cape Motorsports +4.5908s
3 McElrea +5.0703s
4 Kaminsky +7.3739s
5 Christian Rasmussen Jay Howard Driver Development +10.0942s
6 Jak Crawford DEForce Racing +14.3073s
7 Barrichello +17.3643s
8 Matt Round-Garrido BN Racing +17.8063s
9 Shields +18.2941s
10 Gold +18.9009s
P: McElrea, 2m09.4266s
FL: Keane, 2m10.1826s
Championship standings
1 Eves 204? ?2 McElrea 163? ?3 Kaminsky 131? ?4?Keane 121? ?5?Shields 118? ?6 Sulaiman 105? ?7 Baron 92? ?8?Rasmussen 84? ?9?Gold 84? ?10?Tomaselli 79