PALMETTO, Fla. – Just a few days after wrapping up a debut weekend in Missouri, the USF Juniors Presented by Cooper Tires competitors will be back in action this week almost 600 miles to the southeast at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Ala. The Andersen Interior Contracting Grand Prix of Alabama will comprise a pair of races, on Thursday and Friday, in advance of a busy weekend which will include the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and the entire Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires.
Canadian Mac Clark proved to be a dominant force in the opening two USF Juniors races at Ozarks International Raceway, capturing a pair of victories for DEForce Racing and establishing himself as the early favorite for the scholarship prize valued at over $220,000 to graduate into the 2023 Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship, the first official step on the Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires.
Clark, from Milton, Ont., Canada, earned a maximum score of 66 points from the opening two races after also scooping the bonus points offered for pole position, fastest race lap and leading most laps. A scheduled third race was canceled due to inclement weather on Sunday.
Clark also was the pacesetter during a recent pre-season test at the similarly challenging and undulating 2.3-mile Barber road course situated just a few miles from Birmingham, Ala., although his best lap was less than a tenth of a second faster than Velocity Racing Development’s Sam Corry, from Cornelius, N.C.
Corry, who claimed a pair of third-place finishes in the opening two races, currently holds second place in the point standings ahead of VRD teammates Nikita Johnson, from Gulfport, Fla., and Alessandro De Tullio, from Miami, Fla., who each earned one second and one sixth-place finish.
Andre Castro, from New York, N.Y., also remains strongly in contention after securing a brace of encouraging fourth-place finishes last weekend for the brand-new International Motorsports team.
A host of contenders this week are likely to include the Crosslink Kiwi Motorsport pair of Jeremy Fairbairn, from Wellington, Fla., and Titus Sherlock, from Prosper, Texas, who both earned a top-five finish at the Ozarks, Elliot Cox, from Indianapolis, Ind., who drives for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing Development – and posted the third best time during the Barber test last month – and David Burketh, from Laurel, Md., who will make his series debut for the Future Star Racing team.
The 18-car USF Juniors field will take to the track for the first time with 30 minutes of official practice at 8:45 a.m. CDT on Thursday, April 28, followed by half-an-hour of qualifying at 11:20 a.m. which will set the starting grid for the first of two races at 2:35 p.m. Race Two will commence at 9:30 a.m. on Friday.