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Saturday afternoon at Mid-Ohio - USF2000 Race 2 of the weekend…
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…turned out to be an almost perfect race for pole-sitter Kiko Porto for DEForce Racing, leading all laps and taking the WIN. P2 was yesterday’s WINNER Michael d’Orlando for Cape Motorsports from his P2 start while P3 went to P4 starter Simon Sikes for Legacy Autosport for the 3rd podium in 3 races.
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The huge field got away at the start pretty cleanly, but there was a lot of shuffling in the pack to avoid contact, starting with P3 starter Nolan Siegel for DEForce, who had to drop to P6 in order to avoid contact. Simon Sikes took over P3 and the podium was already set before Turn 2. Christian Brooks for Exclusive Autosport made the leap from P13 to P8 while teammate Matt Round-Garrido improved from P8 to P4, and Evan Stamer for Ignite Autosport moved from P26 all the way to P15.
Yuven Sundaramoorthy for Pabst Racing had to drop from P13 to P21 and teammate Josh Pierson dropped from P8 to P16. On lap 2 Billy Frazer for Exclusive moved past Nolan to take over P6 as Spike Kohlbecker for Ignite Autosport put Christian Brooks back to P9. The biggest forward mover was Yuven, who recovered to P16. By Lap 6 Pierson had also recovered to P12. Those guys are passers.
On lap 7 Yuven moved into P7 past Evan Stamer. Meanwhile, Kiko Porto and Michael d’Orlando were beginning to detach from the pack, but not from each other. On lap 9 Michael set Fastest Lap to stay with Kiko, while Yuven passed Myles Rowe for Force Indy to take P14. On lap 10 Kiko set his own Fastest Lap while Myles returned the favor on Yuven and reclaimed P14. On lap 13 Jackson Lee for Jay Howard Driver Development pitted from P27 for fresh tires, with the intent of setting Fastest Lap to ensure a better start in Race 3. He then did exactly that, setting Fastest Lap after rejoining on Lap 13. He reset it on Lap 16.
For the remainder of the race it was a close battle for the lead between Porto and d’Orlando and a similar battle between Siegel and Frazer for P6. On lap 19 Nolan took Frazer for P6 in Turn 4 while Brooks, Jace Denmark for Pabst and Josh Green for Turn 3 Motorsports all passed Spike Kohlbecker for P8, P9 and P10, respectively. On the final lap, Yuven retook P14 with Evan Stamer following through past Myles Rowe.
Kiko WON by 0.4 seconds over Michael, who was 3.99 seconds ahead of Simon. For a race with the podium set after the first turn of the first lap, this one had tons of action going on!
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Notable:
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This was Kiko’s 3rd WIN of the seaon and it secures his lead in the points over Michael d’Orlando. Race 3 will also have Porto on pole with d’Orlando in P2.
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Jackson Lee’s bid to improve his starting position worked perfectly. Instead of starting somewhere near the tail of the field he will start Race 3 from P5. JHDD Teammate Peter Vodanovich did the same thing and was similarly rewarded with a race lap much better than his qualifying 2nd lap. He will start Race 3 from P6. These are the best career starts for both drivers.
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Your happy podium - That’s Michael d’Orlando in P2 on the left, Kiko Porto in P1 in the middle and Simon Sikes in P3 on the right:
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The final race for USF2000 will be on Sunday morning - first race of the day. Next up, the IndyCars hold their final practice…
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