MILLVILLE, N.J. – Last weekend I raced at New Jersey Motorsports Park on the Thunderbolt configuration in Legacy Autosport’s No. 20 USF2000 car.
The weekend was, hands down, one of the most useful and developmentally educational weekends of racing I’ve had this whole year. I learned a ton about the USF2000 car and why it’s such a challenging car for me to maximize.
It mainly comes down to the learning curve involved in how to keep the platform of the car properly balanced through the corner and why it’s so important to do so for maximum cornering ability.
This is something that I’m still learning even after two race weekends in the car because the driving technique required is very different than I’m used to. It’s going to be interesting to see whether or not the key to success in the USF2000 car is also the key to success in other formula cars. From my discussions with team principal Michael Meyer and my driver coach for the weekend, Alex Baron, this seems to be a strong possibility.
In terms of my weekend performance, I can confidently say that I came out on the other side a better driver. I got a lot of practice and testing in, which is largely how I treated the weekend since every session was essentially a chance to improve my driving technique and get comfortable with the car amidst varying track conditions.
In terms of race results it was certainly nothing to brag about. I started last in race one and race three and next to last in race two. My pace became more and more competitive as the weekend progressed. It was really noticeable whenever I had the chance to put new tires on and attempt to put everything I learned together for a couple of laps.
Race one was a fully dry race where I had the chance to run hard and continue practicing my technique. In order to avoid excessive physical fatigue that would’ve slowed my pace as the race went on, I developed a hand-placement methodology for how I held and turned the steering wheel in different corners.
Because the majority of the corners on the track are fast right-handers with high g-load, I had to move my left hand to the underside of the left side of the wheel and my right hand to the top-side of the right side of the wheel. This afforded me significantly more leverage in those turns and kept my left hand and arm from doing the majority of the work during the race.
I applied this technique throughout the rest of the weekend, which was very useful in handling the physically demanding aspect of the car. I ended up finishing race one in 22nd after starting 23rd.
We started race two on rain tires due to the track having just been rained on and still being somewhat slippery. Even though the track for all intents and purposes was practically dry by the end of the race, our team decided to keep the rain tires on because switching the tires to slicks would likely have lost me too much track position to be worth it.
I had some very good racing throughout the race against my former Lucas Oil School of Racing competitor Trey Burke where I was able to keep him behind me for a lap and a half. That was fun and a nice challenge. I was up to 14th or 15th at one point in the 23-car field.
By the end of the race I had fallen back to 18th due to the pass Burke was able to make on me and a couple other competitors who had switched to slick tires near the beginning of the race and had been able to catch up and pass me.
My left-front tire in the last few laps was absolutely done, leaving me with no grip. One thing I learned from that race is that I needed to gradually adjust my driving to account for this increasing lack of grip so that I could continue to maximize my cornering ability and lap times. This would’ve meant to back up the corner entries to not be left trying to collect the car on the exits. I finished the race with a solid 18th-place finish.
In race three we all started on rain tires again and this time I was confident going in that the track would be significantly more slick than in race two earlier in the day. I figured this would be the case since it was raining for a couple of hours beforehand.
However, the rain stopped and by the time our race had started the dry line had almost fully presented itself. The track was still a little slick but I was hoping that instead of getting another race two where we had drying conditions that it would just be a full-on rain race.
I actually had a pretty good start to the race, overtaking a couple of cars on lap one, but a few laps later the track was so dry that my rain tires weren’t doing me any justice as I was struggling for grip.
The team decided to switch me to used slicks and I was able to go much faster than before. I struggled with them in the carousel, where there was still a little bit of the track that was wet, but besides that they were definitely the better tires to be on.
I was doing my best to utilize race three as a final chance to practice different things and refine my driving technique, but nothing really clicked any further in my understanding of the car. I ended up finishing 23rd.
In the end, this weekend was another fantastic learning experience. I can’t thank Legacy Autosport and Alex Baron enough for working with me and helping me learn the car and develop a more nuanced understanding of its platform.
I’m really excited to see how these experiences will apply to my time on the NJMP Lightning track this week, where I will be running in the Skip Barber F4 Series.