Bamford Scores Victory at PittRace
Wampum, PA - Steve Bamford took another solid victory, starting from pole and leading flag-to-flag in his quest for the 2016 F2000 Championship with a win coming in round nine of the season at Pittsburgh on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Brandon Dixon finished second in the No. 5 entry while Trent Walko brought home a Mazda-powered Van Diemen on the third step of the podium for Team Pelfrey.
"It was a decent race. I would have liked the fastest lap but I'll give that one to Trent," said Bamford. "We had a good start and the cars behind me were battling and it let me get away. I was able to build a gap and keep it."
Dixon was able to match his Sunday Mid-Ohio result in July with a second place finish.
"I think Steve had the pace on all of us today," said Dixon. "We made a big improvement from qualifying this morning. It was ugly. We made bigger changes than we would usually make between qualifying and the race. It was a gamble but the car was a lot happier."
Walko made his 2016 debut, as the local driver started second, fell back to fourth and moved to third in Team Pelfrey's first F2000 Championship Series start, and also set the fastest lap of the race.
"It's great to be back after 10 months after being in a car and it's good to be back in one for my home race," Walko said. "A big thanks to Team Pelfrey for the opportunity to try the Mazda car in the series. I hope we can get some more of these cars out on track next year."
Finishing fourth and the race's hard charger, Steve Jenks and Tumenas Motorsports went from the back to the front, bouncing back from missing qualifying with an electrical issue on the No. 68 car.
"It was a lot of fun," said Jenks. "The car was great in the race and it was fun to go by everybody. I race shifter karts and can't do starts, so I'm used to these charges."
Completing the top five was the No. 67 machine of Dave Weitzenhof, while Dan Denison was sixth in his return to Polestar Racing. John McCusker went from third to last and recovered to finish seventh, trailed by a trio of drivers from R-Sport: Bob Reid, Rielly Harris - in his series debut - and Tom Fatur.
F2000 repeats its Saturday show on Sunday at Pittsburgh with morning qualifying followed by race two, round 10 of the 2016 season, in the afternoon.