Elkhart Lake, Wis. – The Cooper Tires Grand Prix of Road America Powered by Elite Engines concluded on Sunday with Turn 3 Motorsport securing season high results within their Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires program.
 
Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship // #33 Josh Green // #34 Dylan Christie
Josh Green started the weekend by qualifying eighth for Race 1 and sixth for Race 2. In Race 1, Green set to work on getting to the podium, making several great passes and getting his #33 JHG/Mark Green car up to fifth by the end of Lap 2. It wasn’t long into the race that Green began to lose some speed and in hand, some on track positions. The 18-year-old kept pushing through all 12 laps and finished ninth for the first of the two contests.
 
In Race 2, Green—equipped with a new engine—was off with a vengeance but found himself gridlocked for the first few laps. Once Green was able to get to the front of the group he started in, he took off and was up to sixth by Lap 10. Green chased and overtook two more cars before the checkered flag, finishing fourth for Race 2, his best finish of the season to date.
 
“It was for sure a tough weekend at Road America these past couple days,” said Josh Green. “We had a strong car and unfortunately struggled with a motor in Race 1 which we switched for Race 2, unlocking a large amount of pace. After a rough start to that race, we drove to the front and in the later laps managed to find P4 which is a good result considering where we started. I really want to thank everyone at Turn 3 Motorsport for all their extremely hard work and dedication to the sport. We’ve taken a big step in the right direction, and I’m hopeful for a strong weekend at Mid-Ohio in two weeks.”

Dylan Christie qualified his #34 DCR car 14th for Race 1 and 16th for Race 2 in the field of 25 cars. In Race 1, the rookie lost a few spots on the opening lap while avoiding contact, but soon recovered the positions and then some, coming in 13th for the first race of the weekend.
 
Race 2 was packed with wheel-to-wheel racing from the get-go, and Christie did not back down from the challenge. The 17-year-old fought his way forward seven positions throughout the 12-lap race to ultimately finish ninth in the second and final race of the weekend, matching his second best race result of the season thus far.
 
“We had a rough start to the weekend, but it felt good to work my way forward in Race 2,” said Dylan Christie. “We qualified toward the back and got involved in a choppy start, but we made our way back into the top ten, which felt good. We put it together in the end, but I would like to work on getting up to speed sooner. The team has my back in this, and we are working to put on a good show at Mid-Ohio.”

Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires // #3 James Roe
James Roe had an excellent start to his weekend in Qualifying 1; the rookie placed his #3 Topcon/Trintech car in the pole position on his first hot lap where he held strong up until five minutes to go at which point he was bested by a mere 0.4200 seconds and ended up starting seventh for Race 1.
 
The start of Race 1 saw four cars involved in an opening lap incident with Roe avoiding the wreck and moving up to fifth. Once the race restarted, the #91 car of Braden Eves came up through farther back in the field and overtook Roe for fifth. Over the remaining laps, Roe fought to chase down Eves’ car while also holding off the #18 car of Hunter McElrea, eventually crossing the finish line in a well-earned sixth place, his best result of the season to date.
 
Roe’s second qualifying effort didn’t pay off quite as well as his first, and the Irishman ended up starting 11th for Race 2. Knowing he had one of the fastest cars on track, Roe went to work on improving his rank and made his way up P7 by the halfway point. It was then that disaster struck in the form of a suspension part failure; Roe lost his steering going into Turn 7, sending the #3 car straight into the barrier and ending his race early.
 
“Overall, I think it was a weekend of what could have been,” said James Roe. “We started off the weekend with a straight line speed issue during testing which was rectified by changing engines. Our speed was then very strong, and in qualifying, we were on the pole up until the last five minutes. Race 1 was steady as we moved forward and showed great speed again. Race 2 was really unfortunate as we had worked our way up to P7 after some bold moves and were the fastest car on track by some margin only to suffer left front suspension failure which ended our day. I’m extremely thankful for the AMR safety team for attending to me so quickly. We have proven our speed once again, so now it’s on to Mid-Ohio.”
 
“It was a challenging weekend for the team,” said Team Owner Peter Dempsey. “It was especially difficult because this is our home race, and with our success here in the past, we expected to be stronger. We all worked hard throughout the weekend to maximize our results and fortunately, we were able to come away with some of our best results of the year. Although it’s not what we wanted, it’s still a step in the right direction.”
 
“I want to thank everyone on our team for their hard work and dedication to making us all better,” continued Dempsey. “We are going to keep pushing as hard as we can for the rest of the season, and we will come back stronger again at Mid-Ohio.”
 
Up next on the 2021 Road to Indy calendar is the first of two events at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The upcoming event will take place over Fourth of July weekend, July 2-4, and will be a tripleheader event for the USF2000 Series and a doubleheader event for the Indy Pro 2000 Series.