F2000 Season Finale at Pittsburgh This Weekend

October 12, 2015
Sam Beasley

Salem, NH – With the 2015 F2000 Championship Series title already locked up by Sam Beasley, the rest of the field will now see if they can stop the No. 4 driver for the double-header season finale at Pittsburgh International Race Complex this weekend.

It’s the Series second trip the fast and flowing new road course this season, as Beasley swept both races with relative ease to open the month of August in the 14-race season.

It was Trent Walko that got the closest to Beasley in qualifying in the first visit to the track, as the Pittsburgh native, who considers this event his home race, managed a third place run in the second race. He picked up more pace at New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP) at the end of August in qualifying, but bad luck turned what looked to be two podium finishes into twin DNFs.

Coming off a strong NJMP weekend, Eric Filgueiras has two second place finishes in the last two F2000 weekends and sits tied for the lead of the season-long Hard Charger points standings, and third in the overall points chase, behind Steve Bamford.

Bamford comes into the weekend with the Masters Class Championship locked up based on a strong season which saw an overall win at Watkins Glen.

The No. 7 driver scored second and third place finishes in the first two races at Pittsburgh.

Noting their best ever finishes at New Jersey, Sam Chastain’s second place run and John McCusker’s third place will give both young American drivers some momentum heading in to the season finale.

Besides Bamford and Beasley, David Grant and Quinlan Lall have also won races this season. Lall’s victory came in the season-opening exhibition weekend at West Palm Beach, and he is fresh off a F3 test in England. Grant, who won the season-opening points race at Road Atlanta, bounced back to a hard-fought fourth place run in New Jersey after being helped off the track in race one.

Austin McCusker, a finalist for the Team USA Scholarship, has seen a best finish of second thus far this season in his No. 6 Dotworks Racing RFR, and continues to search for his first victory.

Quietly marching toward the front of the field, Brandon Dixon put in a season-best qualifying effort on Sunday morning in New Jersey, qualifying third in the No. 5 Citation. Despite an aggressive start in the race, Dixon's day was cut short, and Pittsburgh could hold promise for him as he logged a fifth place finish there in round 10 of the season.

A three-day race weekend format welcomes the F2000 paddock to the season finale in Pittsburgh, with two practice sessions taking place on Friday and Saturday and Sunday each featuring morning qualifying and an afternoon race.

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