Wheldon keeps his cool, scores first USF2000 win

Oliver Wheldon kept his head while others around him seemed to be losing theirs in baking hot conditions Friday afternoon and took his first career USF2000 race victory in the first of two races at Portland International Raceway.

VRD Racing’s Wheldon, 15, slipped from first to third in the opening stages, but took advantage of a slice of misfortune for Pabst Racing’s championship contender Eddie Beswick, who dropped out of the lead with a broken suspension, to become the fifth youngest winner in USF2000 history.

Canadian Anthony Martella maintained his run of form for Exclusive Autosport to take second after starting eighth, while Wheldon’s teammate Ryan Giannetta recorded his second straight podium finish in third.

Despite being forced to miss the opening two races of the season, which occurred before his 15th birthday, Wheldon became the first driver to claim four Continental Tire Pole Awards this season when he posted the fastest lap in qualifying. His best lap of 1m11.0033s was barely a tenth of a second away from Rasmus Lindh’s record set all the way back in 2018.

Wheldon managed to maintain his lead at the start – just – while all manner of mayhem erupted behind at the first chicane to ensure the safety car was scrambled almost right away.

After six laps of caution, Wheldon continued to hold the advantage at the restart, although Beswick took advantage of a trimmed out aerodynamic setup to pull alongside and snatch the lead heading into the Turn 10/11 chicane.

Evan Cooley, in another Exclusive Autosport entry, profited from Wheldon’s loss of momentum to slip into second with Giannetta in fourth ahead of Martella.

Beswick stretched his lead to as much as two seconds by the mid-point of the 25-lap race, but by then Wheldon had regained his mojo and moved ahead of Cooley under braking for Turn 7. Cooley ran off at the exit and ultimately retired to the pit lane minus his car’s front wing.

Wheldon proceeded to set a string of fast laps as he narrowed the gap to Beswick to less than a second, then grasped the lead when the unfortunate Australian suffered a left-front suspension failure as he entered the first chicane at the start of lap 18.

Another brief full-course caution was necessitated while Beswick’s stricken car was removed from the course, and Wheldon made no mistakes as he reeled off the remaining laps to take the win.

“After a kind of not-great restart, I just put my head down," said Wheldon. "I saw that Beswick had an issue so I just capitalized on that and tried to pull away as much as I could. And in the end, it paid off.”

Martella glimpsed an opportunity to slip past Giannetta for second shortly before the finish to cap off another fine drive, while Joao Vergara finished hot on Giannetta’s heels in another VRD Racing entry.

Wesley Gundler rebounded from stone cold last on the opening lap to a career-best fifth for ENVE Motorsports, while Wian Boshoff pocketed the Tilton Hard Charger Award for PFH Racing after climbing from 18th to eighth.

Championship leaders Sebastian Garzon (DEForce Racing) and Brad Majman (Pabst Racing) both encountered a series of difficulties. After being involved in the first-corner fracas, both worked their way back into contention before additional errors dropped them back down the order again. Majman ultimately recovered to sixth, while Garzon had to be content with 14th.

The PFC Award went to VRD Racing’s Dan Mitchell as the winning car owner.

The final USF2000 race of the weekend will see a green flag Saturday at 12:50pm local time.