Road to Indy Announces Revised 2020 Schedule
All Three Levels of Ladder System will Continue with 18 Races

PALMETTO, Fla. (March 26, 2020) – Following the schedule announcement today from Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires’ sanctioning body INDYCAR, Andersen Promotions has also confirmed a revised 2020 calendar to run in conjunction with the NTT INDYCAR SERIES.

To recover the two races lost at Barber Motorsports Park and Circuit of The Americas, triple header rounds for all three levels – Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires, the Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires and the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship – will take place at Road America and the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, helping to reduce costs to teams while maintaining an 18-race event schedule.

“With all the challenges the world is facing these days, it has been a positive experience working with our partners at INDYCAR in preserving a full event calendar for the Road to Indy,” said Dan Andersen, Owner and CEO of Andersen Promotions. “The loss of COTA and Barber is unfortunate, as we very much enjoy racing at those great venues, but the solutions we have worked out will maintain full 18-race schedules for all three Road to Indy Championships while still delivering the variety and excitement that our program has come to be known for. It’s a bit compressed, but under the circumstances, I am delighted with this schedule.”

The revised schedule is as follows, with the season-ending awards banquet for all three series to take place in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Updated 2020 Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires Schedule:

*triple header for USF2000

Additionally, the series will hold a second Spring Training outing on June 10-11 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for all three levels. Updated testing regulations will be announced to teams shortly.

The traditional Chris Griffis Memorial Road to Indy Open test will now move to sometime in December or January at an appropriate venue for weather conditions.

By Steve Wittich

Rookies set three of the top five lap times in the first Indy Lights practice session, but it was veteran David Malukas (HMD Motorsports) that turned the quickest lap at 66.266 seconds.

2019 Indy Pro 2000 champion Kyle Kirkwood was the quickest of the rookies, but not by much. Kirkwood’s USF2000 and Indy Pro 2000 rival Rasmus Lindh and his Andretti Autosport teammate Danial Frost were both within two-tenths of a second adrift of Kirkwood. Rounding out the top five, and still within a half-second of Malukas was Andretti Autosport veteran Robert Megennis.

An obviously happy Malukas told Rob Howden from the Pennzoil INDYCAR Radio Network, said he was “in love” with the grip and lack of bumps that the new paving has brought to the circuit. The 18-year-old from Chicago, Ill. was also effusive about the chemistry within the HMD Motorsports squad.

Right on time, at 10:15 am, the last rung on the Road To Indy, the Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires series took to the track for their only session of the day and their lone practice session before qualifying.

The ten turbo-charged 2.0L AER powered Dallaras hit the track and immediately got to work.

With eight minutes elapsed in the 45-minute practice session, the red flag came out for the first time for newcomer Tristan Charpentier came to a stop between Turn 13 and Turn 14. There was damage to the right rear and right front and tire marks on the concrete barrier in Turn 12. The AMR INDYCAR Safety Team cleared the Andretti Autosport No. 48 from the track, and the track went back to green with just over 30 minutes remaining.

Charpentier was not able to get back on track and was only able to turn four laps at a track he has never visited before. Not an ideal start to his Indy Lights debut weekend.

The drivers had turned between three and six laps, and the quickest lap to that point was a lap timed at 67.276 seconds by Malukas in the HMD Trucking sponsored No. 79. The remainder of the top five were Santi Urrutia, Megennis, Frost, and Kirkwood.

It didn’t take long before Urrutia, who won the last time he was on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit in 2018, quickly took over the top spot on the timing screens.

With 24-minutes remaining, Malukas went back to the top of the timing screens with the first sub-67-second lap on his 11th lap of the session. At that point in the practice, eight of the ten drivers were all within one second of the top spot.

With 21-minutes left in the session, Kirkwood turned a lap that was a scant two-hundredths of a second better than Malukas.

At the two-thirds point of the practice, the top seven drivers were within a half-second of the top spot that was held by Kirkwood. Kirkwood’s gap to Malukas was a scant two-hundredths of a second.

With just over 10-minutes remaining, Urrutia and the Uruguay Natural/BSE/ANCAP sponsored No. 55 ended up in the Turn 4 run-off area. The veteran was able to keep the engine lit, and the session remained green. On his next lap, the Uruguayan missed Turn 10, and once again, he was able to back up and keep going.

With five minutes left, Malukas held the top spot, with Kirkwood, Lindh, Sowery, and Megennis all within a half-second of the HMD Motorsports driver.

The ten drivers completed a total of 252 laps. Malukas, Kirkwood, Frost, and Antonio Serravalle were the busiest drivers, each completing 30 laps of the 14-lap circuit.

Sowery told Rob Howden from the Pennzoil INDYCAR Radio Network that the track is still slippery, but with some of the new pavement, it is going to be quick once it sufficient rubber has been put down. He also explained that his best lap was hampered by one of Urrutia’s offs.

Indy Lights Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Presented by Andersen Interior Contracting/Cooper Tires Practice results

Reigning USF2000 champion Braden Eves was the only driver to turn a lap of the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit in the 68-second range, a full half-second quicker than any other drivers. Behind Eves, it was that same half-second that covered the next eight drivers.

Drivers representing four different teams made up the top-four spots, with Kory Enders (DEForce Racing), Sting Ray Robb (Juncos Racing), and Lucas Petersson (RP Motorsport) and Parker Thompson (DEForce Racing) rounding out the top five.

The 14 Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires drivers were the second series to take to the track.

The session was only 150 seconds old when the red flag came out for an incident involving Artem Petrov in Turn 4. Drivers had only been able to complete a single lap.

Petrov was able to get back on track completing 14-laps, which was the 6th fastest lap of the session.

The green flag came back out five-minutes later with 23-minutes remaining, and the track was immediately busy with the drivers heading back out on-track.

Braden Eves was the quickest driver at the half-way point of the lone practice session for the middle rung of the Road To Indy Presented by Cooper Tires with a lap timed at 69.225 seconds. He was followed closely by Thompson, Enders, Denes, and de la Vara in the top five.

With just under 10-minutes remaining, the red flag came out for the second time. This time it was de la Vara and the No. 6 DEForce Racing PM-18 that had an issue.

At that time, it was Eves, with a lap of 69.116 seconds that was on top of the timing screens. He was followed by Thompson, Denes, Enders, and Sulaiman rounding out the top five. The first 12 drivers were all within two-seconds of Eves.

The green flag came back out with only four-and-half minutes remaining, and a dozen cars were quickly back on track. Veteran Robb was the first driver to improve on his lap time, but it didn’t take long for the timing screen to light up green as drivers improved on their lap times.

The first driver to turn a sub-69 second lap was Eves, who accomplished that on his 14th lap of the session, the Meyer-Shank Racing affiliated driver was able to go faster on his next and last lap of the session.

The Indy Pro 2000 drivers will be back on track at 1:25 pm for their lone qualifying session of the event.

Indy Pro 2000 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Presented By Cooper Tires/Allied Building Products.

By Steve Wittich

Pabst Racing sophomore Eduardo Barrichello led the first official race weekend Road To Indy Presented by Cooper Tires session of the 2020 season that was dominated by veteran drivers.

The second-generation driver was joined in the top five by 2019 USF2000 race-winner Christian Rasmussen (Jay Howard Driver Development), Michael d’Orlando (Cape Motorsports), Reece Gold (Cape Motorsports) and Christian Brooks (Exclusive Autosport).

Brooks and DEForce Racing rookie Kiko Porto were the only drivers with no St. Petersburg track experience to end the practice in the top ten.

The first track activity of a condensed and surreal race weekend was a 30-minute Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship. The 21 2.0L Elite Engine powered cars served as an 8 am alarm for the downtown St. Petersburg, Fla. condo dwellers.

Drivers quickly started turning laps, until the red flag came out 10-minutes gone for an incident involving Jay Howard Driver Development rookie Wyatt Brichacek in Turn 5. The Colorado-based driver had just turned his quickest lap of the session.

He was able to get back out on track and turned a total of 14 laps during the session.

At that point in the session, most drivers had been able to complete 4 to 6 laps of the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit. Rasmussen held the quickest lap at 75.143 seconds. The rest of the top five were Round-Garrido, Barrichello, Porto, and Siegel.

The green flag came back out with 15-minutes remaining.

Drivers were only able to complete a couple of laps before the track went back to red. Sophomore Yuven Sundaramoorthy just tapped the wall in Turn 12. He was able to keep going, bringing the No. 21 Pabst Racing USF-17 to pit road.

The car suffered no damage, and Sundaramoorthy was able to get back out on the track, turning the seventh quickest lap on his final lap of the session.

The green flag quickly came back out with just over 10 minutes remaining, and the track was immediately busy with veteran drivers getting a handle on the set-up of the cars and newcomers still trying to learn the track.

The first driver to improve on their quickest lap was Barrichello, but it didn’t take long for the entire timesheet to show a lot of green with drivers turning their fastest laps. The quick laps included Rasmussen setting the first sub-75 second lap.

Rassmussen still had the quickest lap with five minutes remaining, and seven drivers were able to break the 75-second barrier.

With just over three minutes remaining in the session, Barrichello was the first driver to break in the 73-second lap bracket.

The red flag came out for the final time with just under two minutes remaining, bringing the session to a close.

USF2000 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Presented By Andersen RacePark/Cooper Tires Practice Results.