By Steve Wittich

The lowest rung of the Road To Indy Presented by Cooper Tires had three test sessions (120 minutes), but no timing or scoring was available. Editorial note from Steve – I actually like that. It allows the teams to work on a designed testing plan with no pressure to turn in that ultimate quick lap.

The temperature when the 30-minute session began was in the upper 60’s but quickly surpassed 70F. There was a light haze, but that burned off quickly.

At the half-way point of the session, winner of the Mazda Road To Indy 200K Scholarship winner McElrea had the quickest lap at 82.028 seconds. The rest of the top ten were Christian Rasmussen, Yuven Sundaramoorthy, Darren Keane, Matthew Round-Garrido, Braden Eves, Jak Crawford, Reece Gold, Bruna Tomaselli, and Colin Kaminsky.

Times continued to drop throughout the half-hour session with McElrea going under 82 seconds, on his first lap in the second half of the session.

With five minutes remaining, McElrea and Rasmussen were the only drivers with laps in the 81-second range and were over seven-tenths ahead of Kaminsky, who had the third-best time.

At that point in the session spots, three through 13 were separated by only a half-second.

In the last few minutes of the session, five more drivers were able to get within six-tenths of McElrea.

The 17 drivers that took to the 2.258-Mile, 13-Turn Mid-Ohio Road Course turned a total of 322 laps in a session that went clean and green. Rasmussen, Kaminsky and Christian Bogle all turned 21-laps, the most of the session.

Cooper Tires USF2000 Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio Practice #1 Results

RANK CAR. NO DRIVER TEAM QUICK LAP DIFFERENCE TOTAL LAPS
1 22 Hunter McElrea Pabst Racing 1:21.424 –.—- 20
2 6 Christian Rasmussen Jay Howard Driver Development 1:21.546 0.1223 21
3 21 Yuven Sundaramoorthy Pabst Racing 1:21.819 0.3952 19
4 23 Colin Kaminsky Pabst Racing 1:21.906 0.4813 21
5 27 Matt Round-Garrido BN Racing 1:21.953 0.5288 18
6 2 Darren Keane Cape Motorsports 1:22.021 0.5968 18
7 8 Braden Eves Cape Motorsports 1:22.050 0.6260 15
8 24 Bruna Tomaselli Pabst Racing 1:22.065 0.6410 20
9 4 Jak Crawford Cape Motorsports 1:22.231 0.8065 19
10 3 Reece Gold Cape Motorsports 1:22.269 0.8452 20
11 14 Zach Holden Legacy Autosport 1:22.315 0.8904 20
12 12 Manuel Sulaiman DEForce Racing 1:22.357 0.9325 19
13 40 Jack William Miller Miller Vinatieri Motorsports 1:22.580 1.1554 17
14 41 Eduardo Barrichello Miller Vinatieri Motorsports 1:22.773 1.3490 15
15 7 Christian Bogle Jay Howard Driver Development 1:23.110 1.6854 21
16 36 Nolan Siegel Newman Wachs Racing 1:23.225 1.8006 20
17 77 Timmy Pagliuso Legacy Autosport 1:26.718 5.2940 19

The first rung of the Road To Indy Presented by Cooper Tires is back on track at 1:55 pm for a 20-minute qualifying session.