Barber Motorsports Park Mazda Road To Indy update #6 – Saturday 5pm – Indy Lights Race #1

The 30 lap Legacy Indy Lights 100 rolled off under cloudy skies with Spencer Pigot leading the field to the green flag.

For the second race in a row Kyle Kaiser made a late braking maneuver into Turn 1, something that Jack Harvey was worried about after qualifying when he found out Kaiser was starting behind him again. But this time he ran wide instead of hitting another driver for the second race in row, he went wide and fell back to seventh.

Behind Kaiser there was chaos, Sean Rayhall was pushed into spinning Scott Anderson, and both cars came to a stop at Turn 1 with damage. Both were able to resume and come around to the pits. Rayhall resumed with a new front wing one lap down, but Anderson had suspension damage that took several laps to repair before he could resume.

Enerson, who just turned 18, scored his first Indy Lights podium after starting the race on the inside of the third row. He was able to pick-up two positions on the first lap. The first one came when Kaiser, who started in the forth spot broke too late entering Turn 1 and the second one came when he was able to get by Ed Jones on the outside of Turn 16. Enerson did think that having experience racing at this track really helped.

Kaiser went wide and hit the curbs at Turn 14 doing a 360 degree spin and lost another position to Juan Piedrahita.

Up front, Spencer Pigot was pulling away from Jack Harvey, who was pulling away from RC Enerson and the rest of the field. Pigot made this race look easy as he went on to win by over six seconds.

Back in the field, Ed Jones kept up the pressure on Enerson, while Kyle Kaiser was all over Piedrahita trying to atone for his earlier spin. Both efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, though.

That was the first Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tire win for Juncos Racing.

The podiums by Harvey and Enerson were the 174th and 175th podiums for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. It was also the 13th career Indy Lights podium for Harvey, who has now three of four races on the podium this season.

After the race Harvey was fairly philosophical saying “No driver comes to finish second, but it’s better than third.” and explained that it was hard to be disappointed with a second place after fracturing his thumb in a Long Beach incident. He did explain that he had to change his had position but didn’t think that cost him any time.

The championship chase between Jones and Pigot has tightened up, with Jones now holding a slim 12 point lead.

The next Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tire race will be at 12:10pm (CT) tomorrow.

Indy Lights Race #1 Results:

Pos Car Driver Result
1 12 Spencer Pigot 30 laps
2 42 Jack Harvey 6.7109
3 7 RC Enerson 24.2826
4 11 Ed Jones 24.9485
5 14 Max Chilton 25.7335
6 4 Felix Serralles 28.8632
7 5 Juan Piedrahita 46.3356
8 18 Kyle Kaiser 46.8461
9 51 Shelby Blackstock 47.9857
10 71 Ethan Ringel 1:00.4889
11 77 Scott Anderson 27 Laps – Running
12 8 Sean Rayhall 27 Laps – Running