Season Opener for USF Juniors Attracts Strong 22-car Field

PALMETTO, Fla. – All three steps on the USF Pro Championships Presented by Continental Tire open-wheel driver development ladder will be featured this week, April 10-13, at NOLA Motorsports Park. After commencing their campaigns recently on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., the top two rungs, USF Pro 2000 and USF2000, will return to action on the 2.74-mile, 13-turn road course situated just a few miles from downtown New Orleans, La. In addition, USF Juniors will kick off its 16-race season with a quality entry of 22 cars.

Two qualifying sessions and three races will be held for all three championships. A total of 99 points are available in each series, comprising 30 points for a race victory and single bonus points for pole position, fastest race lap and most laps led.

A pair of milestones will be hit during the NOLA weekend. The opening USF Pro 2000 race will represent the 350th since the advent of its forerunner, Star Mazda, as a bona fide National Championship in 1999, while USF Juniors Race Two will be the 50th since the series’ inception in 2022.

Garcia Holds Early Advantage in USF Pro 2000
Max Garcia apparently has been completely undaunted by the step up from USF2000 to USF Pro 2000. As the youngest driver in the series at age 16, and after winning the USF2000 title – plus a scholarship valued at $458,400 – last year at a relative canter, Garcia, from Coconut Grove, Fla., has taken up where he left off. He has already opened up a useful 13-point advantage for Pabst Racing following a second-place finish and a race victory from the first two races of the new season in Florida.

Canadian Mac Clark, the inaugural USF Juniors champion in 2022, is Garcia’s closest rival in terms of points. Clark displayed admirable consistency for Exclusive Autosport in St. Petersburg, while Alessandro De Tullio, from Miami, Fla., emerged as the other race winner. De Tullio, who also posted the fastest times during the preseason Spring Training test at NOLA Motorsports Park, became the fourth different driver in as many years to claim the opening race of the season for defending series champion team Turn 3 Motorsport.

Last year’s USF Juniors champion, Max Taylor, from Hoboken, N.J., lies a close fourth in the points chase after securing a pair of top-five finishes for VRD Racing.

The Pabst Racing pair of Michael Costello, from Naples, Fla., and Jacob Douglas, from Christchurch, New Zealand, each scored a third-place finish to commence their campaigns and have slotted in behind Jace Denmark (TJ Speed Motorsports), from Brownsburg, Ind., Vietnamese Owen Tangavelou (VRD Racing) and Tanner DeFabis (Jay Howard Driver Development) as they head to NOLA Motorsports Park.

McNeilly the Man in USF2000
Rookie or not, England’s Liam McNeilly has taken the USF2000 series by storm. McNeilly, who will celebrate his 19th birthday later this month, impressed on his debut last summer by taking a pole position and a second-place finish on his USF2000 debut on the streets of Toronto, Canada. He also finished a close second in the USF Juniors title-chase.

So far this year McNeilly is unbeaten for the Jay Howard Driver Development team, securing a pair of victories on the streets of St. Petersburg. He was also fastest during the rain-shortened Spring Training test at NOLA Motorsports Park, albeit by a scant 0.0445 of a second over fellow rookie Jack Jeffers, from San Antonio, Texas, who finished second in both St. Petersburg races for Exclusive Autosport and seems to be on the cusp of his first win.

Caleb Gafrarar was the other standout performer in Florida. Gafrarar, 16, from Charlotte, N.C., has joined two-time defending series champion team Pabst Racing for his rookie campaign on the USF Pro Championships ladder. He was arguably the man to beat in St. Petersburg after posting the fastest lap in qualifying to secure his maiden Continental Tire Pole Award. Unfortunately, Gafrarar made a mistake early in the first race and failed to finish, although he rebounded strongly to finish third in Sunday’s race.

Others who displayed good speed in Florida included the DEForce Racing pair of Jeshua Alianell, from The Woodlands, Texas, and Colombian Sebastian Garzon, plus Evan Cooley (Exclusive Autosport), from Mokena, Ill., G3 Argyros (Pabst Racing), from Newport Beach, Fla., and Thomas Schrage (VRD Racing), from Bethel, Ohio.

Wide-Open Field for USF Juniors
There is no shortage of potential winners as USF Juniors Presented by Continental Tire prepares for its fourth season of competition. A scholarship prize valued at almost $250,000 is on offer for the series champion to graduate onto the next step of the ladder, USF2000, in 2026.

This weekend will see the 16-race season kick off with a tripleheader event at NOLA Motorsport Park, although virtually all of the 22 entrants already had an opportunity to gain experience of the 2.74-mile road course.

The traditional Spring Training test saw honors shared between Florida-based Brazilians Joao Vergara (VRD Racing) and Leonardo Escorpioni (Zanella Racing), who each topped the timing charts prior to the final day being scrubbed due to adverse weather conditions. Nevertheless, it was Escorpioni who narrowly emerged ahead at the preceding YACademy Winter Series which comprised tripleheader events at Homestead-Miami Speedway and NOLA.

Victory in the final race was enough for Escorpioni to narrowly eclipse Evan Cooley, who has graduated to USF2000 for the season, as well as Zanella Racing teammate Ty Fisher, from White Rock, Canada, and Vergara.

Oliver Wheldon, from St. Petersburg, Fla., the just turned 14-year-old brother of Sebastian Wheldon, who finished a close third in the 2024 USF Juniors title-chase, also is expected to shine for VRD Racing, despite having been too young to contest the Spring Training test. After following in his brother’s footsteps by winning last year’s Skip Barber Formula Race Series and a lucrative scholarship to move up to USF Juniors, the younger Wheldon placed an encouraging fourth in the YACademy Winter Series.

The stacked USF Juniors field for the first time will include three female drivers as Emma Scarbrough (InterMS), from Senoia, Ga., Maddie Colleran (Zanella Racing), from Hunting Valley, Oh., and Kaylee Countryman (Exclusive Autosport), from Chandler, Ariz., are all set to make their debuts after stepping up from karting.

Full coverage of qualifying and the races for all three series, including timing, live streaming and the event schedule, can be found on the free USF Pro Championships App, YouTube channel and respective series’ websites, usfpro2000.com, usf2000.com and usfjuniors.com.