Brian Belardi, owner of Belardi Auto Racing, announced today that the Brownsburg, Ind.-based team will field a USF2000 car for 15-year-old Luigi Biangardi of Barrington, Ill. in the final six races of the 2011 Cooper Tires Presents the USF2000 National Championship Powered by Mazda.
Biangardi will drive the team's No. 9 Van Diemen Mazda as the teammate to the series' latest winner, as Belardi Auto Racing's Wayne Boyd won the most recent USF2000 race last month at the Milwaukee Mile.
Biangardi's car will be sponsored by Inject-It.com and Gulfstream Properties and the team's primary sponsor, Liberty Engineering.
The team is fourth in the USF2000 team point standings midway through the 12-race season.
Biangardi, who will be a sophomore at Barrington High School in Barrington, Ill., this fall, finished fourth in the 2010-2011 Skip Barber Racing Southern Series with one victory (Sebring, Fla.), five podium finishes and nine top-five finishes.
In 2010 he placed sixth in the Skip Barber Summer Series. He also competed in a doubleheader in the BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda last August, earning a seventh and a fourth-place finish at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., in front of a big crowd during the track's American Le Mans Series weekend. Despite making the jump from a regional Skip Barber series to the National series, Biangardi even led a lap in his first Skip Barber National race, and was never out of the top 10 in either event.
Biangardi's first year of car racing was 2009. He placed sixth in the 2009-2010 Skip Barber Racing Western Series with five podium finishes and earned that series' "Most Improved Driver" award.
Prior to Skip Barber competition Biangardi raced karts since the age of 5, picking up over 50 victories in various classes.
Belardi Auto Racing tested Biangardi in one of its USF2000 cars at a two-day test at Blackhawk Farms Raceway in South Beloit, Ill., recently.
"Luigi got right up to speed, turning competitive laps that would have been fast enough to earn the pole at the last SCCA National race at Blackhawk," Belardi said. "He listened and picked things up pretty quickly, and we were impressed."
"Luigi ran about 400 miles over the two days and never once put a wheel wrong," concurred Louis D'Agostino, the team's lead engineer. "He was able to adjust quickly to the changes we made to the car and he provided solid feedback."
"It was a great couple of days working with the Belardi Auto Racing crew," Biangardi said. "I had fun and learned a lot working with my engineer, Louis. The whole team at Belardi Auto Racing is great, and we seemed to all gel. I'm really looking forward to competing in the USF2000 series and being part of the Mazda Road to Indy program."
Biangardi will make his USF2000 debut in a doubleheader at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio Aug. 6-7. He'll compete in another doubleheader at Road America Aug. 19-20 and the season-finale doubleheader on the brand-new street course at Baltimore Sept. 3-4.
For more information see the following Web sites: BelardiAutoRacing.com, LuigiBiangardi.com, USF2000.com and IndyCar.com. The team is on Facebook and it can also be followed through @BelardiRacing on Twitter.
Belardi Auto Racing is sponsored in part by Liberty Engineering of Roscoe, Ill., which is a leading manufacturer of proprietary machinery, conveying equipment, candy-making equipment and paper-testing machinery.
The team fields multiple entries in Firestone Indy Lights as well as USF2000.