USF2000 - Luke Ellery Personal Indy Report

I went into Saturday with only a single day of testing on an oval – possibly the least oval experienced of the whole field. On Friday I had some great top 5 pace all day long, so my goal was to chip away at a good race balance and have a consistent car over a longer distance instead of a “one lap flyer” setup.

I went into practice prior to our qualifying run and missed my new tyre gain due to traffic. I still ended up the session 3rd fastest, and backed it up with 5th fastest in the secondary session.

Going into qualifying we decided to just stick with a safe race setup and aim for a top 5. I ended Qually 4th and was pretty happy considering I had a few big slides on the cold tyres.

Going into the 75lap race, we were hit with a massive thunderstorm and the race was actually delayed 3 hours. By the time we got underway it was well and truly under lights.

I had an issue with my radio for the first 10 laps or so, my start was pretty average, dropping to 8th at turn one. I got up to 6th pretty quick. You really need a spotter when running wheel to wheel and with nobody in your ear you have to be that much more cautious. I had plenty of speed and just kept fighting through, getting into the top 3 within 20 laps or so.

We hit traffic pretty soon after and I just picked my spots and got into 2nd. I grabbed the lead into turn one with a huge hanger, 3 wide with traffic around us. I pulled a gap and held that for a large amount of the race.

Coming up to lapped car into turn 3, I had plenty of pace on him but he lost it, spinning up the track and rolling back up the track straight into me. I had nowhere to go at all and my race was done.

The damage was significant, I would estimate around $5,000, the chassis is actually damaged and there was not much left of the front corner. Front carbon fibre wing was totalled.

At the end of the day I didn’t feel too horrible as I knew how much of a show I put on for the crowd and the people back home. I had the fastest car all race long, I could drive it anywhere I wanted and from what my opposition said, I had the race all but won.

To be in such a strong position with no testing means we can still do this. I hope to hit the track for Milwaukee but I am still unsure of that due to the damage bill.

I head to Minnesota in the week to help JDC Motorsport pull the car down and get the chassis repairs done to make it cheaper, so will keep you updated as to my Milwaukee plans!

Cheers,

Luke