By Patrick Stephan

The second Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires practice of the weekend got underway at 11:15am under cloudy skies with the air temp at 69 degrees and the track at just 83.1F.  That’s a pretty low track temp here, as we can expect it to get over 110F if the sun gets out either for qualifying at 3:25pm today or tomorrow’s race at 10:40am.

Benjamin Pedersen took his Global Racing Group with HMD machine to P1 early in the session with a lap of 1:03.9268, followed Sting Ray Robb at 1:04.1888, then point leader Linus Lundqvist, Danial Frost, Jacob Abel and Christian Rasmussen rounded out the Top 6.

Benjamin Pedersen in his car at Portland. Penske Entertainment: Chris Owens.

For comparison sake, (and to show that these Indy Lights machines are getting around here pretty quick), the official track record was set at 57.2143 by Will Power on September 1, 2018.  The track is listed as 1.964 miles and 12 turns.

This weekend, the current configuration of the Dallara Indy car’s quickest lap so far is again Will Power at 58.3946.  Pedersen’s 63.9268 is best Lights lap at the time (pre-qualifying for both series).  The fastest race lap for Indy Pro 2000 in Race #1 was Reece Gold at 69.3726.  Finally Nikita Johnson turned a 72.4810 as the fastest lap of USF2000 Race #1.

Things were pretty static for most of the session with Pedersen getting out of the car with a few minutes remaining. He told IMS Radio that he was pretty happy with the session considering he was out on pretty old tires.

Danial Frost moved up to P2 with 5 minutes to go, turning a 1:03.9071, just 0.0047 behind Pedersen’s session best of 1:03.9024.

With less than a minute remaining Christian Bogle came to a stop in Turn 3. Doesn’t appear to have hit anything, he has just stopped over there.  This will bring the session to a close with Pedersen remaining up front.

Pos Car # Driver Best Lap Diff Laps Best Lap Team
1 24 Benjamin Pedersen 1:03.9024 1:03.9024 19 16
Global Racing Group with HMD
2 68 Danial Frost 1:03.9071 0.0047 20 14
HMD Motorsports with Dale Coyne Racing
3 2 Sting Ray Robb 1:03.9404 0.038 26 25
Andretti Autosport
4 28 Christian Rasmussen 1:03.9790 0.0766 25 18
Andretti Autosport
5 27 Hunter McElrea 1:04.0623 0.1599 29 21
Andretti Autosport
6 26 Linus Lundqvist 1:04.1026 0.2002 21 15
HMD Motorsports with Dale Coyne Racing
7 83 Matthew Brabham 1:04.1672 0.2648 26 18
Andretti Autosport
8 51 Jacob Abel 1:04.2679 0.3655 25 24
Abel Motorsports
9 99 Ernie Francis Jr. 1:04.4528 0.5504 28 20
Force Indy
10 7 Christian Bogle 1:04.5370 0.6346 23 20
HMD Motorsports with Dale Coyne Racing
11 21 Kyffin Simpson 1:04.7077 0.8053 22 9
HMD Motorsports
12 15 Flinn Lazier 1:04.8419 0.9395 27 20
Abel Motorsports