The Jay Howard Driver Development stable of three Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship teams and three Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires teams took on Rounds 3 and 4 of their respective seasons this weekend at Barber Motorsport Park. The highlight of the weekend was a second-place podium by Braden Eves in Indy Pro 2000 Race 2.
Eves missed out on pole position for the second race by mere thousandths of a second, but drove a stellar race to finish in his starting position. He leaves Alabama holding third place in the driver’s standings. Indy Pro teammates Wyatt Brichacek and Salvador De Alba each suffered reliability issues throughout the weekend, but both drivers kept their heads high and took valuable lessons away from the second race weekend of the year.
In USF2000, Danny Dyszelski, Yeoroo Lee and Jorge Garciarce each put forth a solid effort throughout the weekend. All three rookies are learning and progressing with each new session and will look to take what they’ve learned into the month of May. Their first chance to race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as Road to Indy competitors will happen later this month.
“Overall, a mixed up-and-down weekend,” said team owner Jay Howard. “It was good to end the weekend on the podium with Braden and solidify his position in the championship. On the USF2000 front, we have young kids with no experience and, as they expected, got stronger and stronger as the weekend went on. I’m hoping that when we go to IMS, we’ll have a little more track time. That should help their progression. On the Indy Pro side, it was an up-and-down event. We had a few challenges to work through this weekend, which is actually a bit disappointing because we were so strong in testing here a few weeks ago. It is what it is. We’re happy with our podium, we’ll keep fighting and move-on to Indy.”
The Indy Pro 2000 and USF2000 championships return to action at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, May 12-14. Catch live streams on RoadToIndy.TV, the Road to Indy TV App and the series’ respective websites, indypro2000.com and usf2000.com. Find @followJHDD on social for news, updates and highlights.