ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — USF2000 Presented by Continental Tire reached the halfway point in its 18-race season on Saturday with the first of two races which will comprise this weekend’s Elite Engines Grand Prix of Road America. The schedule was affected by severe weather in the morning, which led to the second race being postponed until Sunday morning, although that will be of little consequence to the locally based Pabst Racing team — which will surely celebrate a fine second win of the season for Sam Corry.
A dramatic affair saw Joey Brienza emerge in second for Exclusive Autosport, while VRD Racing’s Max Taylor rounded out the podium in third.
The race began with championship leader Max Garcia lining up at the front of the 21-car grid for Pabst Racing after earning his fifth Continental Tire Pole Award of the season during the lone qualifying session held Friday morning. Unfortunately, a heavy rain shower forced officials to red-flag the race after merely one lap behind the Honda Civic pace car, which led to a lengthy delay before the race finally was restarted much later in the afternoon.
A sequence of incidents interrupted the flow of the restarted race, such that there was time for merely a two-lap dash to the checkered flag. Corry had usurped teammate Garcia from the race lead during one of the earlier cautions, and with an assist from some dramatic weaving in an attempt to break the slipstream, he was able to achieve his goal and take the checkered flag just under one second clear of Brienza.
A poor start saw Taylor, who started on the outside of the front row, slip as low as seventh in the order. But the teenager put his head down as the race reached toward its conclusion, diving to the inside under braking for turn 12, Canada Corner, on the final lap to emerge in third ahead of Garcia, who had been shuffled back at the final restart, and Elliott Cox.
Cox, who started seventh for the Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing Development team, was involved in an early skirmish that relegated him to 15th. Incredibly, despite a broken front wing, Cox fought back through the field to run as high as third on the final lap before finally being shuffled back to a still impressive fifth.
Ayrton Houk also drove another strong race for the DC Autosport team, rising from 11th on the grid to sixth at the finish, although the Tilton hard charger award was claimed by debutant Jace Bacon (Jay Howard Driver Development), who kept out of trouble and rose from 21st on the grid to 14th.
Also impressive was the recovery drive posted by teammate Michael Costello. His hopes of a good finish seemed to be over after he attempted to overtake Garcia for the lead soon after a restart in turn one saw him spinning off into the gravel. Remarkably, and with credit to the AMR INDYCAR Safety Team, Costello rejoined the race and even contrived to fight his way back to an eighth-place finish.
The PFC award went to Augie Pabst as the winning car owner.