The break in between St. Pete and the next race at Lucas Oil Raceway felt like an eternity. However, Lucas Oil was very much worth the wait. I mean we are racing the Night Before the 500! The whole Belardi team looked strong in the official test that took place a couple weeks ago, and we were all looking for a strong result. I was especially excited, as our pace was very strong and I was looking forward to turning my season around, and gaining some momentum.
Before no time, we were all lined up in the pits for qualifying. It would still be a long time to the race, but already the stands were starting to fill up. This was even more impressive because of the big threat of impending rain. But the rain held off, and qualifying went smooth.
My engineer Joe had given me a great car for qualifying, I was a bit tentative because of a moment on the warm up lap, but I was still able to set provisional pole and a provisional lap record. By the end of qualifying I had fallen back to P4 but it was still a great result and a great team result as well with Danilo [Estrella] and Daniel [Burkett] making the top 10.
Happily, the rain held off and in no time we had been gridded on the front stretch. We all got out of our cars and got ready for introductions. It was a pretty awesome experience. We were called on stage one at time, and introduced on stage in front of the crowd. Being a local, Brandon Newey had everyone covered here and I'm pretty sure he had his own fan club!
We soon were all back in the cars, and behind the beautiful Mazda 6 pace car. I had a good start and was immediately in P2. I fell back to P3 on Lap 2 but stayed close for the first half of the race when I finally made my move. It was now time to start tracking down the leader.
Our car was still strong and I could see I was getting closer and closer to Neil [Alberico] every lap. We both began maneuvering through traffic, but during the course of passing lap traffic, P3 had begun to close ground! Soon enough all three of us were close, and after some unfortunate timing with a lap car, I fell to P3.
I would finish the race in the same spot. It was bitter sweet. It was fantastic to score my first USF2000 podium, but also slightly annoying to have been so close to a win. ( I imagine Carlos Munoz felt similarly after the 500!). Either way it was still fantastic to stand on the podium! I’m hoping this will start some momentum for us as we go to the streets of Toronto in a little more than a month. I can’t thank everyone enough who have gotten me here - Belardi, who had a great car under me, and all the people helping me this year: MAZDASPEED, Intercity Lines, California Scents, Beurre & Sel, B&R and Randy’s Wooster Street Pizza. On to the next one!