The first, and only practice for the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tire series was led by Belardi Auto Racing veteran driver Shelby Blackstock. The Barber Motorsports Park event is “home race” of sorts for Blackstock, who is originally from Nashville, Tenn., and also spends a lot of time at the 2.3-mile, 17 Turn road course as instructor for the Barber based Porsche Sport Driving School.

Rounding out the top five in practice were Garth Rickards (Carlin), Zachary Claman DeMelo (Carlin), Kyle Kaiser (Juncos Racing) and points leader Colton Herta (Andretti-Steinbrenner Racing).

All 15 drivers were within one-second of Blackstock, in a session that saw varying tire strategies. (We’ll try and find these out and send them out in a notebook a little later this afternoon.)

Full practice results

RANK CAR # DRIVER TEAM QUICK LAP GAP
1 51 Shelby Blackstock Belardi Auto Racing 1:15.150
2 11 Garth Rickards Carlin 1:15.203 0.0532
3 13 Zachary Claman De Melo Carlin 1:15.308 0.1585
4 18 Kyle Kaiser Juncos Racing 1:15.424 0.2737
5 98 Colton Herta Andretti Steinbrenner Racing 1:15.442 0.2920
6 22 Neil Alberico Carlin 1:15.548 0.3979
7 26 Matheus Leist Carlin 1:15.570 0.4204
8 27 Nico Jamin Andretti Autosport 1:15.573 0.4233
9 3 Pato O’Ward Team Pelfrey 1:15.636 0.4867
10 5 Santi Urrutia Belardi Auto Racing 1:15.725 0.5755
11 9 Aaron Telitz Belardi Auto Racing 1:15.759 0.6093
12 28 Dalton Kellett Andretti Autosport 1:15.767 0.6169
13 31 Nicolas Dapero Juncos Racing 1:15.852 0.7020
14 48 Ryan Norman Andretti Autosport 1:16.117 0.9668
15 2 Juan Piedrahita Team Pelfrey 1:16.264 1.1140

Qualifying for the first Indy Lights race is scheduled for an early 8:40am start on Saturday morning, and Race #1 will roll off at 2pm.