Garcia resumes his USF Pro 2000 winning ways in Portland

Max Garcia qualified only third for Saturday's 17th round of the USF Pro 2000 Presented by Continental Tire championship at Portland International Raceway, but he took the lead in the first corner and never looked back en route to his eighth victory of the season for Pabst Racing.

The first of two races that will make up the Continental Tire Grand Prix of Portland saw Canada’s Mac Clark convert another strong performance with Exclusive Autosport into his 11th podium finish of the season. First-time polesitter Frankie Mossman, from Newport Beach, Calif., had to be content with third for VRD Racing.

An exciting qualifying session on Friday saw Mossman post the fastest time in the dying moments to secure a long awaited maiden Continental Tire Pole Award. It was richly deserved after a strong performance in the most recent race on the streets of Toronto where he led virtually the entire race until being overtaken on the final corner.

Clark also pulled a rabbit out of the hat when it mattered in qualifying. Clark, from Milton, Ont., Canada, jumped to second place ahead of a disgruntled Garcia, from Coconut Grove, Fla., who had led the way for most of the 20-minute session until encountering traffic over his final couple of laps which prevented him from improving.

Garcia duly lined up third on the grid for this morning’s race, although that all changed at the first corner when Mossman went a little too deep on the brakes and caused several of his rivals to take evasive action. Unflustered, Garcia turned in behind the polesitter on the perfect line, then simply drove around the outside at the ensuing left-hand turn to vault from third to first. The race, effectively, was over.

After a brief early caution due to debuting Australian Miles Bromley (TJ Speed Motorsports) running off at the exit of Turn 2 on the second lap, Garcia soon began to edge clear of the field. His eventual margin of victory was 3.7564s.

Clark, having squeezed past Mossman at the first corner, maintained second place throughout the 30-lap race, while VRD teammates Mossman and Max Taylor, from Hoboken, N.J., followed in third and fourth.

A strong start saw Pabst Racing’s Michael Costello, from Sarasota, Fla., run fifth during the early stages, although he later slipped back to seventh behind teammate Jacob Douglas, from Christchurch, New Zealand, and Alessandro de Tullio (Turn 3 Motorsport), from Miami, Fla.

Israel’s Ariel Elkin finished a distant eighth for TJ Speed Motorsports, which wasn’t enough to prevent him from being overtaken for second place in the point standings by Clark with just one race remaining.

Elkin’s teammate Sebastian Manson, from Auckland, New Zealand, earned his second Tilton Hard Charger Award of the year, rising from 13th on the grid and fighting off a race-long challenge from Exclusive Autosport’s Joey Brienza, from Golden, Colo., to finish ninth..

Augie Pabst earned another PFC Award as the winning car owner.

Both Garcia and Pabst Racing have already wrapped up their respective driver and team championships, but the battle for second between Clark, Elkin and de Tullio will be settled in the season finale which will see a green flag Sunday, August 10, at 2:50 p.m., immediately after the NTT IndyCar Series headline event.

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