By Patrick Stephan

Good morning from sunny and cool St. Petersburg, Florida.

USF2000 qualifying was our first event of the day, with Jake Eidson continuing his dominance by taking the pole position for their first of two races this weekend.

Eidson, who finished third in both the pre-season Cooper Tires Winterfest and last year’s full USF2000 championship is looking to move up a couple spots and is clearly asserting himself as a favorite to take this year’s title.

The session started at 8:00am here in St. Pete under sunny skies, with the cool temps we expected after that cold front finished moving through last night.

Eidson’s 1:13.5852 bested a 1:13.9362 by Aaron Telitz, with Nico Jamin following.

Parker Thompson qualified ninth but also brought out the red flag at the conclusion of the session when he caught the wall in turn four. That car had to come back on the wrecker, giving his team a lot of work to do before their first race at 10:15am (the crash happened at about 8:30am).

Here is the unofficial timesheet from USF2000 qualifying: