ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Scott Anderson continued his recent hot streak in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda by capturing the pole position for Race #1 of a triple-header weekend of racing at Road America. This is the first USF2000 pole position for the Belardi Auto Racing driver who claimed his first career win two weeks ago at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Anderson, who pilots the #14 MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development/Neuropathy Testing Center/Laser Nail Center Van Diemen which sports the OtterCares® Foundation of Fort Collins logo, was also quickest in testing yesterday at the 4.048-mile, 14-turn permanent road course. He is currently fourth in the championship standings. The 2011 Skip Barber National champion and MAZDASPEED Scholarship driver is also part of the Derek Daly Academy.
“Coming off our recent success at Mid-Ohio, the whole team had a lot of momentum heading into this weekend and a lot of confidence,” said Anderson. “Also, with our success at the test here in June, we were able to hit the ground running and were pretty strong right from the start. From there it was just some fine-tuning and good work from my engineer. It is my first pole and coming off a win and second-place, it’s awesome. Hopefully, we can keep up the podiums. I think the race tomorrow is going to be really exciting with the times being so close and I am looking forward to it.”
Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing’s Spencer Pigot will line up alongside Anderson on the front row – his sixth front row start this season. Pigot just missed claiming his fourth pole position of the year by a scant 0.035 seconds.
“Starting second isn’t too bad,” said Pigot, who leads the point standings in the #2 Team Pelfrey/Doug Mockett & Company/E-merging Technologies/Parathyroid.com entry. “We would have liked to have been on pole but we are not too far off. It is going to be a really close race between the front four or five and I am really looking forward to it. The guys gave me a good car and, hopefully, we can move up tomorrow.”
The top eight starters for Friday’s race are separated by less than a second and represent five different teams. Pigot’s teammate Matthew Brabham will line up third in the #83 DTE Group car followed by Matthew Di Leo of MDL Racing in the #56 Res Precast machine, who also claimed his career-best finish of second at Mid-Ohio. JDC MotorSports’ Neil Alberico will line up fifth in the #19 Kartel Motorsports/Bondurant School/RaceLite Protection/Red Line Oil entry.
In the National Class, Henrik Furuseth of Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing barely edged championship rival RC Enerson of ZSports Midwest with Team E Racing for bragging rights. Furuseth was a mere 0.081 seconds quicker in the #32 Palfinger/Akrene Mek Verksted entry. Only one point separates the pair in the championship with Enerson currently at the top in the #10 Patriot Bank/Team E car. Patrick Gallagher of JAY Motorsports rounds out the top three in the National Class in the #91 CTL Engineering/ProMotion Driver Development entry.
The first of two races scheduled tomorrow will take place at 9:40 am CDT, just prior to ALMS practice, with the green flag waving for Race #2 at 5:15 pm, immediately following ALMS qualifying. The final race will kick off track activities on Saturday and is scheduled for 8:45 am, just before the ALMS race warm-up. Live commentary and Timing and Scoring is available at www.usf2000.com.