LaRue Darts to Mid-Ohio Victory
Lexington, OH – John LaRue stalked Sam Beasley for 13 laps before finding a way around the No. 44 and immediately pulling a gap out on a tight group of the top five cars. LaRue cruised to his second win at Mid-Ohio in two years, after starting on pole and being the fastest car all weekend in the No. 17 Citation entry. Beasley settled for second, fending off Championship points leader Tim Minor in the closing stages of the race, round seven of the F2000 Championship Series season.
But the weekend so far has all been about LaRue’s fast red Citation, which has dominated. No surprise, he set fast lap at 1:23.589, although almost half a second off his impressive 1:23-flat pole time.
“It was a great day, Sam was tough here,” said LaRue. “Once I got out of the air behind him it felt much better.”
Beasley said he got on the gas at the right time at the drop of the green, rocketing into the lead in the opening set of corners in the No. 44 Polestar Van Diemen. Beasley kept LaRue and a top five battle at bay until LaRue found a way past.
That left Beasley to fend off Minor, which he managed to do, keeping the Series Champ behind him for the final six laps of the all-green-flag contest at Mid-Ohio.
“We have a Championship to look at,” said Minor, obviously thinking about points. “It was a fun, but tough race. I can’t take unnecessary risks.”
Minor may be thinking more about those risks after a hard testing crash on Thursday night that tore off the left front corner and nose assembly of the No. 88.
The race at Mid-Ohio was nothing short of boring as Minor had to fend off Thomas McGregor, who hassled Minor for nearly the entire race. McGregor, who won at VIR in June, brought the No. 93 Exclusive Autosport entry home in fourth.
Skylar Robinson ran in the lead pack for most of the race before losing touch, settling for fifth while Joey Selmants had an uneventful day, running by himself to finish sixth.
Serio Pasian, Kevin Kopp, Tim Paul and Trent Walko completed the top ten, with Walko marking a top ten finish in his first ever F2000 race in the No. 91 Work Racing RFR.
After running strong early, David Grant slipped to an 11th place result over Quinlan Lall and Jason Rabe – while John McCusker and Jim Libecco rounded off the top 15 in an all-green-flag race at Mid-Ohio.
Steve Bamford started from the tail end of the field following a Friday engine failure that forced the No. 07 to miss qualifying. Unfortunately the bad luck continued as Bamford went off on the opening lap and finished well down the order.
The weekend concludes on Sunday, July 6, with 11:00am F1600 qualifying followed by a 3:20pm green flag for round eight of the 14-race 2014 F2000 Series season.
Race Results:
PosNo.NameLapsBest TmMake/ModelDiff 1 17 John Larue/M 19 1:23.589 Citation Snipe - 2 44 Sam Beasley 19 1:24.159 Van Diemen +1.979 3 88 Tim Minor/M 19 1:24.115 Citation F2k +2.166 4 93 Thomas McGregor 19 1:24.210 Spectrum 014Z +2.449 5 6 Skylar Robinson 19 1:24.470 Citation +6.228 6 28 Joey Selmants 19 1:24.812 Van Dieman Rf00 +16.865 7 77 Sergio Pasian 19 1:24.786 Van Diemen Rf +18.901 8 66 Kevin Kopp 19 1:24.789 Van Diemen +21.262 9 06 Timothy Paul 19 1:25.218 Van Diemen +24.343 10 91 Trent Walko 19 1:24.990 Rfr +24.867 11 29 David Grant 19 1:25.192 Spectrum 014Z +30.215 12 1 Quinlan Lall 19 1:25.547 Van Diemen +33.702 13 14 Jason Rabe 19 1:24.861 Van Diemen +34.209 14 01 John McCusker 19 1:25.839 Rfr 12 +40.292 15 98 Jim Libecco 19 1:25.502 Van Diemen Rf05 +41.081 16 51 Dan Denison/M 19 1:25.667 Van Diemen RF05 +41.444 17 83 Charles Finelli/M 19 1:26.628 Van Diemen RF01 +58.253 18 90 Robert Wright/M 19 1:26.176 Radon Rn10 +58.579 19 27 Craig Clawson/M 19 1:26.492 Van Diemen Rf01 +1:01.339 20 07 Steve Bamford/M 19 1:25.785 Van Diemen Rf08 +1:01.683 21 31 Brendan Puderbach 18 1:28.398 Rfr 1 Lap 22 7 Gary Machiko/M 18 1:28.389 Van Diemen Rf98 +0.339 23 12 Bob Reid/M 18 1:29.481 Rfr +22.094 24 02 Robert Allaer/M 9 1:25.790 Van Diemen Rf02 10 Laps DNF 68 Steve Jenks/M 5 1:27.766 Van Diemen RF 00 14 Laps DNS 23 Connor Gawry 0 -.--- Van Diemen Rf02 -