PALMETTO, Fla. – A traditionally busy Memorial Day weekend of racing kicks off on Friday evening with the Carb Night Classic at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in Brownsburg, Ind. The top two rungs of the USF Pro Championships Presented by Continental Tire open-wheel development ladder, USF Pro 2000 and USF2000, will share top billing with the USAC Silver Crown and USAC Midget stars.

The always exciting, high-banked 0.686-mile paved oval represents the only opportunity of the season for young drivers in the series to hone their left-turn-only skills. All competitors will benefit from a special Oval Clinic on Thursday morning during which tips and advice will be provided by past IRP race winners Louis Foster, who on Sunday will make his Indy 500 debut with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Salvador de Alba, who now competes in INDY NXT, and the only two-time USF2000 IRP winner Michael d’Orlando.

Exclusive Autosport has been the USF Pro 2000 team to beat in recent years at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. The team based within earshot of the track in Brownsburg, Ind., has shown the way in each of the past three years through the efforts of Foster, de Alba and Braden Eves. Of the three, only Eves qualified on pole position; the other two started third, but all three posted the fastest race lap.

Mac Clark, from Milton, Ont., Canada, will lead a trio of Exclusive cars and will surely start as a firm favorite after winning the 2023 USF2000 race from the pole and finishing sixth last year as a USF Pro 2000 rookie. Clark will be joined by Joey Brienza, from Golden, Colo., and Carson Etter, from Villa Park, Calif.

So far as the championship is concerned, Florida’s Max Garcia has carried on his winning ways from last year. Driving for Pabst Racing, the 16-year-old USF2000 champion has taken to the faster, more powerful USF Pro 2000 cars like a duck to water. He has also displayed admirable consistency by taking two wins and a worst finishing position of fourth from the opening eight races.

Garcia currently holds a healthy 57-point edge over a trio of contenders currently battling in his wake: fellow Floridian Alessandro de Tullio (Turn 3 Motorsport), Israeli rookie Ariel Elkin, who has stepped up impressively from USF Juniors with TJ Speed Motorsports and Clark, who has yet to win a race this year but already has four podium finishes to his credit.

Other probable contenders on Friday night include Brownsburg, Ind., resident Jace Denmark (TJ Speed), who finished a strong second last year and is still searching for an elusive first USF Pro 2000 victory, and Tanner DeFabis, from nearby Avon, Ind., who dominated last year’s USF2000 Freedom 75 for Jay Howard Driver Development.

A pair of 45-minute test sessions on Thursday, May 27, will precede the all-important single-car qualifying session later that same afternoon at 5:30 p.m. EDT. The only other opportunity to gain some track time will be a 15-minute practice session at 4:50 pm. on Friday prior to the 90-lap Freedom 90 which is slated to start at 9:30 p.m.

The first five races of the USF2000 season were dominated by Englishman Liam McNeilly and his Jay Howard Driver Development team. The feat left him one shy of matching the all-time record start to a campaign of six straight wins shared by, coincidentally, his team owner Jay Howard in 2005 and another of Howard’s charges, Denmark’s Christian Rasmussen, in 2020. Rasmussen this weekend will make his second Indianapolis 500 start for Ed Carpenter Racing.

Unfortunately, visa woes prevented McNeilly from attending the two most recent races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Grand Prix road course, and he is likely to be absent this week, too.

Thus, the door has been left wide open for someone else to set their sights on the ultimate prize of a championship and a scholarship valued at over $405,000 to graduate onto the next step of the USF Pro Championships ladder, USF Pro 2000, in 2026.

A maiden USF2000 race win and a podium finish just over one week ago at Indianapolis was enough for Exclusive Autosport’s Jack Jeffers, from San Antonio, Texas, to take a slender two-point lead over McNeilly. A similar result – a second-place run followed by a first-ever win on the road course  – for Thomas Schrage (VRD Racing), from Bethel, Ohio, moved him to within 13 points of Jeffers after rebounding strongly from a disappointing start to the season on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla.

Only four of the 18 drivers entered for Friday evening’s Freedom 75 have prior USF2000 experience on the IRP oval: Pabst Racing’s G3 Argyros, from Newport Beach, Calif., DEForce Racing’s Brazilian Lucas Fecury, and local drivers Elliot Cox and Ayrton Houk.

Cox, from Indianapolis, Ind., is set to return with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing after experiencing budgetary problems while attempting to graduate to USF Pro 2000 earlier this year, while Houk, from McCordsville, Ind., will drive for his family’s Benchmark Autosport team. Houk proved to be one of the stars one year ago, starting on the outside of the front row.

Both Houk and Schrage also have previous oval track experience from competing in the Kenyon Midget series.

A couple of 45-minute USF2000 test sessions on Thursday will be followed by single-car qualifying at 4:45 p.m., and then one more 15-minute practice at 4:30 p.m. on Friday prior to the green flag of the 75-lap Freedom 75 at 8:30 p.m.