By Steve Wittich

Rasmus Lindh joined Braden Eves as back-to-back Road To Indy winners on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. The Juncos Racing rookie doubled his career win total, leading all 25 laps on the way to a 2.0669-second victory over his Juncos Racing teammate Sting Ray Robb.

“The start was perfect from my perspective,” explained the 17-year-old. “I never let up. I saw that Sting Ray was behind me and while I knew I had been faster than him all weekend, I know where my weakness is and where I’m strong. So I focused forward, working on getting a gap and driving away as fast as I could. Once the gap got up to two seconds, I worked on keeping that gap. It was a perfect weekend for the team. But I still can’t believe it. We didn’t have the speed to win here last year (in USF2000), so I said to myself that I need to win here this year, and I did, so I am very happy for that.”

The win moved the Gothenburg, Sweden native to the top of the points table, grabbing an 11 point lead over Parker Thompson, who lacked pace in his No. 8 from the Abel Motorsports stable. It was only Thompson’s race craft that saved the weekend from being a total disaster for the 21-year-old veteran, who’s 13th to a 5th place run on Saturday, followed a 12th to 5th place charge on Saturday.

Juncos Racing teammates Rasmus Lindh and Sting Ray Robb congratulate each other after finishing 1-2 in Saturday’s second Indy Pro 2000 race (Photo Courtesy Of Andersen Promotions)

The second place finish was Robb’s career best and the solid weekend kept him within two points of Danial Frost in third and within 26 points of teammate Lindh on top of the championship standings.

Danial Frost continued his solid start to the season, collecting his third straight bottom step of the podium finish and moving closer to second place in the championship fight.

“The first corner was rough because I lost two places, but I gained them back by Turn Four,” said the Singapore native. “I had good pace and was catching Sting Ray, but it was hard to get close in the aero wash. But we showed that we are strong here and that the car could do what I wanted it to do – Exclusive Autosport gave me a great car. Next time we’ll be able to get to the front. But I will remember this weekend, with double podiums at Indianapolis, as one of my biggest achievements.”

After one extra pace-lap to bring to help get their Cooper Tires up to temperature, Juncos Racing racing teammates Lindh and Robb brought the 14-car Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires field to the green flag.

Kirkwood, Frost, and Lastochkin all got better starts than outside front row starter Robb and fall four drivers reached the entry to Turn 1, and something had to give. Unfortunately for reigning USF2000 champion, Kirkwood, it was the front wing on his NO. 28 Soul Red PM-18. The Jupiter, Fla. native was forced to pit road and the attention of his RP Motorsport crew. He rejoined the field but was one lap down. He was able to earn the bonus point for the quickest lap of the race,

“The start was hectic,” explained Robb when asked about the start of Saturday’s race. “Rasmus, the team and I had talked about the start and how we could get away, but it didn’t go as planned. He got a great start and I lagged a bit and fell to fourth. I was able to get back up to second, but getting around Kyle, he slid out just a little bit at the apex and caught my rear tire with his nose. I was worried about a puncture but we were good. The team is working hard to get me toward the front and we’re going in the right direction, but a podium here is really special. I got my first podium here last year so to come back and do it again means a lot.”

The Indy Pro 2000 field goes four wide into Turn 1 ((Photo Courtesy Of Andersen Promotions)

The running order at the end of the first lap was Lindh, Robb, Lastochkin, Frost, Rodriguez, Loomis, Thompson, de la Vera, Serravalle, Denes, Abel, Enders, Finelli, and Kirkwood.

On Lap 2, Frost was able to get past his Exclusive Autosport teammate Lastochkin and quickly turned the quickest lap of the race to that point.

After five laps, Lindh’s lead over Robb was 1.3 seconds, but both drivers were feeling pressure from Frost in third the quickest driver on the track.

With ten laps down, Lindh’s lead was a comfortable 1.8 seconds over his teammate. Frost was still pressuring Robb. The front three were cover by 2.5 seconds and had a 4.6-second gap to fourth place Lastochkin, who was starting to feel pressure from Rodriguez.

Further, back Thompson was right under the rear wing of Loomis and de la Vera was followed closely by Serravalle and Denes.

At just past the half-way point of the 25 lap race, Lindh had extended his lead to 1.9 seconds over Robb, who had a more comfortable one second lead over Frost.

On lap 15, Robb turned his quickest lap of the race to that point, and Denes was able to get around Serravalle for 9th.

With five laps remaining Lindh had a 2.1 second lead over Robb, who was still working hard to hold off Frost in third.

Rodriguez slowed noticeably due to a mechanical issue, bottlenecking Loomis and Thompson and allowing de la Vara and Serravalle back into the fray. Thompson made a move on Loomis, which allowed de la Vera to get by both of them. Loomis ended up falling back to 11th.

Unfortunately for DEForce Racing newcomer Rodriguez was forced to retire with the result that did not represent his pace in his first Indy Pro 2000 race weekend.

With three laps remaining, de la Vera and Thompson went by Rodriguez to move up to fifth and sixth.

With two laps remaining, Thompson was able to get by de la Vera to move into the Top 5, eight spots higher than he started the race.

Indy Pro 2000 Grand Prix of Indianapolis Presented by Cooper Tires Race #2 Results

RANK

CAR NO.

DRIVER

TEAM

GAP

1

10

Rasmus Lindh

Juncos Racing

25 LAPS

2

2

Sting Ray Robb

Juncos Racing

2.0669

3

68

Danial Frost

Exclusive Autosport

2.7186

4

90

Nikita Lastochkin

Exclusive Autosport

18.6584

5

8

Parker Thompson

Abel Motorsports

27.9877

6

6

Moises de la Vara

DEForce Racing

30.5674

7

51

Jacob Abel

Abel Motorsports

31.7432

8

98

Phillippe Denes

FatBoy Racing

32.1513

9

11

Antonio Serravalle

Pserra Racing/Jay Howard Driver Development

32.9492

10

7

Kory Enders

DEForce Racing

33.7431

11

9

Jacob Loomis

JDL Racing

35.0240

12

5

Ian Rodriguez

RP Motorsport Racing

40.1603

13

28

Kyle Kirkwood

RP Motorsport Racing

-1 LAP

14

83

Charles Finelli

FatBoy Racing

– 1 LAP