By Steve Wittich

For the second time, this season Pabst Racing sophomore Kaylen Frederick will start from the pole. Saturday afternoon’s race will be the fifth straight Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda race that the 16-year-old will start on the front row.

Starting outside of Frederick is yesterday’s pole sitter Kyle Kirkwood. The presumptive series champion is looking for his eighth straight victory.

Frederick’s lap of 80.645 seconds was only two-hundredths of a second quicker than Kirkwood.

Starting side-by-side on the second row are the Pabst Racing duo of Rasmus Lindh and Lucas Kohl.

Pabst Racing has 11 podiums on the season, but the Wisconsin based team is still looking for their first victory of 2018.

Exclusive Autosport rookie Igor Fraga improved to fifth on his final hot lap, as did Kory Enders and Michael D’Orlando who will start sixth and seventh.

For the second straight day, the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda was the second series to take to the 2.258-Mile, 13-Turn Mid-Ohio Road Course. Yesterday, it was for practice, and today it was for their second qualifying session.

Just before the 10-minute mark of the session Danial Frost, Lucas Kohl, Michael D’Orlando, Igor Fraga, Rasmus Lindh and Jacob Abel came in for new Cooper Tire rubber and to make adjustments

At the halfway point of the 20-minute session, the provisional poles sitter was Rasmus Lindh with a lap of 81.7765 seconds.

A minute later, race #1 winner and series champion elect threw down a hot lap to head to the top of the timing screens.

With just over five minutes remaining in the session, Lindh moved to provisional pole with the first lap under 81 seconds.

Lindh’s dance partner from the first lap during Friday’s Race #1, Kaylen Frederick was the first driver to make a run at the Swedish driver, falling just three-thousandths short.

With just under 2 minutes remaining, Kirkwood went back to the provisional pole with a lap that was two-tenths of a second quicker than Lindh.

Frederick was the next driver to go to the provisional pole. Kirkwood went quicker, but not fast enough on his penultimate lap and was not able to improve his time on his final circuit.

Frederick, Kohl, Fraga, Enders, d’Orlando, Dakota Dickerson and Yuven Sundaramoorthy all improved on their final laps.

Eighteen of the 24 entries turned laps within one second of Frederick.

Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda Unofficial Qualifying #2

RANK CAR NO. DRIVER TEAM QUICK LAP DIFFERENCE
1 24 Kaylen Frederick Pabst Racing 1:20.645 –.—-
2 8 Kyle Kirkwood Cape Motorsports 1:20.668 0.0228
3 23 Rasmus Lindh Pabst Racing 1:20.704 0.0594
4 22 Lucas Kohl Pabst Racing 1:20.897 0.2521
5 91 Igor Fraga Exclusive Autosport 1:20.981 0.3364
6 11 Kory Enders DEForce Racing 1:21.109 0.4646
7 51 Michael d’Orlando Team Benik 1:21.224 0.5796
8 7 James Raven DEForce Racing 1:21.236 0.5911
9 92 Danial Frost Exclusive Autosport 1:21.254 0.6094
10 79 Jacob Abel Abel Motorsports 1:21.289 0.6440
11 9 Dakota Dickerson ArmsUp Motorsports 1:21.300 0.6550
12 21 Calvin Ming Pabst Racing 1:21.331 0.6861
13 80 Julian Van der Watt Team Pelfrey 1:21.350 0.7054
14 90 Yuven Sundaramoorthy Exclusive Autosport 1:21.353 0.7080
15 36 Darren Keane Newman Wachs Racing 1:21.554 0.9093
16 27 Colin Kaminsky DEForce Racing 1:21.591 0.9466
17 81 Kyle Dupell Team Pelfrey 1:21.632 0.9875
18 82 Bruna Tomaselli Team Pelfrey 1:21.707 1.0619
19 28 Keith Donegan BN Racing 1:21.758 1.1138
20 37 David Osborne Newman Wachs Racing 1:21.867 1.2218
21 29 Russell McDonough BN Racing 1:22.086 1.4410
22 31 Sabre Cook Team Benik 1:22.556 1.9113
23 38 Oscar DeLuzuriaga Newman Wachs Racing 1:23.054 2.4096
24 12 Jose Sierra DEForce Racing 6:25.200 5:04.5552

The second Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda will roll off at 12:35 PM.

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