Lloyd wins a six-lap sprint after major carnage

Jordan Lloyd led a Pabst Racing 1-2 in the first USF2000 race of the season in St. Petersburg, but his hard work didn’t start until lap 12 following long caution periods.

A 26-car field fell into first-corner mayhem as James Munro’s Team Pelfrey entry appeared to spear front-row starter Parker Thompson under braking for Turn 1, causing many frontrunners to swerve or stop dead on track to avoid the incident.

Worst affected were Thompson, of course, but also Munro's teammate TJ Fischer and Max Hanratty.

That left Lloyd, teammate Yufeng Luo, Robert Megennis and Luke Gabin as the top four, and that’s precisely the order they stayed in to the checkered flag – but not before another yellow.

Following the restart on lap 7, the third Pabst entry of Garth Rickards spun into the wall on the main straight after contact with Pelfrey's Jordan Cane.

That allowed Clint McMahan of RJB Motorsport – who started 20^th – into fifth, ahead of Victor Franzoni of Arms Up Motorsport.

On the final restart on lap 12, Lloyd nailed the restart, and Luo was comfortably clear of Megennis.

However, on the following lap, Franzoni took fifth from McMahan but all eyes were on sophomore Anthony Martin, who was setting fastest laps and slashed past Franzoni after the Brazilian had attempted a brave but futile move on Gabin at Turn 1.

Martin closed on Gabin and appeared to have the pace for a podium finish as Megennis started falling away from the Pabst entries. However, he simply ran out of laps and had to be content with fifth.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Jordan Lloyd	Pabst Racing	30:44.217
2	Yufeng Luo	Pabst Racing	1.555
3	Robert Megennis	Team Pelfrey	4.355
4	Luke Gabin	JAY Motorsports	4.662
5	Anthony Martin	Cape Motorsports w/WTR	4.929
6	Victor Franzoni	ArmsUp Motorsports	5.654
7	Clint McMahan	RJB Motorsports	16.634
8	Dakota Dickerson	Afterburner Autosport	17.216
9	Nikita Lastochkin	Cape Motorsports w/WTR	17.438
10	Ayla Agren	John Cummiskey Racing	18.032
11	Michai Stephens	RJB Motorsports	18.742
12	Tazio Ottis	JDC MotorSports	19.541
13	Sam Chastain	Chastain Motorsports	20.146
14	Eric Filgueiras	Spencer Racing	20.721
15	Parker Thompson	Cape Motorsports w/WTR	33.818
16	Robert Allaer	JDC MotorSports	34.834
17	Charles Finelli	Fat Boy Racing	47.889
18	James Munro	Team Pelfrey	48.954
19	Brendan Puderbach	Fat Boy Racing	1:00.7046
20	Austin McCusker	Chastain Motorsports	1 Lap
21	Felipe Ortiz	Afterburner Autosport	1 Lap
22	TJ Fischer	Team Pelfrey	4 Laps
23	Lucas Kohl	John Cummiskey Racing	5 Laps
24	Garth Rickards	Pabst Racing	11 Laps
25	Jordan Cane	Team Pelfrey	11 Laps
26	Max Hanratty	ArmsUp Motorsports	16 Laps