Robinson Sweeps Thompson F2000 Weekend
Thompson, CT – Skylar Robinson dominated the second F2000 Championship Series race on the new road course at Thompson Speedway, taking two victories in two days in the No. 6 Eric Langbein Racing Citation. Robinson’s maximum points scoring weekend forces the title fight to the final two F2000 rounds at Watkins Glen in October, as Robinson closes in on Tim Minor’s Championship lead. Sam Beasley and Tim Minor completed the podium in round 12 of the season.
“We have been working hard and the car has been epic this weekend,” said Robinson, whose recent string of victories and podiums has shrunk Minor’s points lead. Heading into the Watkins Glen finale, Robinson will need a huge points weekend to take the 2014 title away from Minor, who won at the Glen in May.
Robinson made Thompson his own playground, leading practice times, and scoring two poles and two wins. Sunday’s margin of victory was 11.9 seconds in a 25-lap all green flag race. Robinson’s win was the third of his rookie F2000 season.
Beasley doubled his result for the weekend, with two second places for Polestar.
“We didn’t have enough speed to keep up with Skylar, but the seconds show how hard we have been working since Road Atlanta on improvements,” said Beasley.
Minor won the Masters Class with a third-place result, but lost a handful of points to Robinson. Now those two, who share an engineer in Eric Langbein, will go to Watkins Glen, competing head to head for the 2014 title. Minor was able to get past the Spectrum of Thomas McGregor on the last lap.
“I was racing McGregor hard,” said Minor, “I made a good move on him out of turn three to take third.”
After running mostly the entire race in third, McGregor had to settle for a fourth place result. The Spectrum from Exclusive Autosport made it three wide on the inside on the run down to turn one at the start, but wisely back out of that move to slot back into third position.
Trent Walko completed the top five in the No. 91 RFR entry, while David Grant finished sixth in the Polestar Spectrum.
Quinlan Lall came home in seventh, marking the best finish of his rookie year in the Momentum Motorsports Van Diemen.
Steve Bamford, Dan Denison and Jim Libecco completed the top ten at Thompson in a trio of Van Diemens.
Tim Paul ran as high as seventh early in the race, but mechanical issues relegated him down the field through the event. It was a weekend to forget for the Screaming Monkey Racing driver, finishing 16th in Sunday’s race after a crash on Saturday.
Kevin Kopp missed the race start with car problems, while Robert Wright’s entry was withdrawn following Saturday’s turn one race incident.
The F2000 Championship Series season concludes with its final weekend, taking place at Watkins Glen International, October 10-12, and featuring rounds 13 and 14.
Full results are available on www.F2000Series.com under the Results tab.