PORTLAND, Ore. — Michael Costello made light of extremely treacherous conditions on Friday to claim a well deserved maiden USF2000 Presented by Continental Tire victory for Jay Howard Driver Development in the first of three races that will comprise the Continental Tire Grand Prix of Portland.
Behind, Pabst Racing’s Max Garcia took one step closer to the championship title by producing a fine drive after an early mistake to finish second ahead of first-time podium finisher and teammate Hudson Schwartz. The pair of podium finishes ensured a second successive team championship for Pabst Racing.
Garcia made certain he would start from the best possible starting position by posting the fastest lap during qualifying earlier in the day and snagging his series leading seventh Continental Tire Pole Award of the year. In fact, the top eight drivers in qualifying were blanketed by less than two tenths of a second, which boded well for an exciting race later in the afternoon.
But a heavy rain shower just as the cars left the pre-grid threw everyone for a loop. The entire field switched to wet-weather tires in time for the start, whereupon VRD Racing’s Thomas Schrage made the best getaway to lead into the first corner… only to leave his braking a touch late and slide well past the apex.
Extraordinarily, the top three made the same mistake, with Garcia and Schrage’s teammate, Max Taylor, also taking to the escape road. The errors resulted in all three being required to serve a drive-through penalty for short-cutting the course.
Schwartz, who started eighth, was the primary beneficiary. A good start saw him make up several positions on the opening lap, which soon became the lead when the others made the turn onto pit road to serve their penalties.
Schwartz quickly established a margin of over three seconds over Costello, only to make a mistake on the exit of Turn 10 on the ninth lap which saw him slide wide and onto the grass. Schwartz fell all the way to ninth before he was able to rejoin.
Costello gratefully took over the lead, pulling out a commanding advantage of over 11 seconds after 14 laps until it was instantly nullified by a full-course caution after the rain returned with a vengeance and left the 1.964-mile circuit completely awash.
The race was restarted with less than six minutes remaining, after which Costello maintained his dominance and sped home just over three seconds clear of the field. Teammate Evagoras Papasavvas took the flag in second, but later fell back to sixth with the addition of a 10-second penalty after he inadvertently tipped Garcia’s title-contending teammate Sam Corry into a spin at Turn Two with three laps remaining.
Garcia marched through the field to second after his early transgression, while Schwartz recovered to take third.