Yahoo Autos Redemption at Mid-Ohio for USF2000 points leader Sikes
Simon Sikes displayed impressive speed during this weekend’s Discount Tires Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio. And finally, Saturday evening on the challenging 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Sikes, from Augusta, Ga., was able to parlay that pace into a dominant USF2000 Presented by Cooper Tires race win, his fourth of the season for Pabst Racing.
With Sikes long gone in the lead, the main interest in the concluding race of the weekend was focused on a thrilling battle for second place. Saturday morning race winner Mac Clark (DEForce Racing) held the position for almost the entire 20-lap distance, only to fall victim to an audacious pass in Turn 2 on the final lap by 15-year-old Nikita Johnson (VRD Racing).
Sikes once again started from the pole position, courtesy of having earned his series leading sixth Cooper Tires Pole Award of the season, and was never seriously challenged. The race once again was interrupted by a couple of early full-course cautions, but over the final 14 laps of green-flag racing, Sikes extended his advantage on each and every lap. His eventual winning margin was a whopping (by USF2000 standards) 10.311s.
“The Pabst car, like always, was perfect. Burke Harrison did a great job on the engineering, Augie Pabst runs such a great organization and the car is just fast,” said Sikes. “To come and show all the pace we had, it was unfortunate to not get it done yet but Race 3 proved to be our time and we were able to get that top spot by quite a margin. It felt really great for the team and it’s great points at the end of the day. Just a huge shoutout to Pabst and Doug Mockett for all the support this season.”
