Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography

Jay Howard Driver Development’s Liam McNeilly took his first USF Juniors win in eight races when he held off the field in a dramatic one-lap shootout.

McNeilly started both USF Juniors races on pole for JHDD and built out an early lead as the pack jostled for position behind him at the race start.

On the opening lap, a collision at turn 5 ended the race of and DEForce Racing’s Leandro Juncos. Exclusive Autosport’s Jack Jeffers was also involved after colliding with his teammate Evan Cooley after he headed off track to try to avoid the incident. VRD’s Christian Cameron was involved in the incident with mild damage as well.

After the restart, McNeilly was able to build out a gap as DEForce’s Bruno Ribeiro and Wheldon battled for the second spot in a four-way fight that also included International Motorsport’s Augusto Soto-Schirripa and Ariel Elkin. Soto-Schirripa would eventually drop a few spots back as Wheldon began to pull away from the third place battle.

As the race reached the halfway point, Wheldon’s lap times improved drastically compared to McNeilly. He cut the gap to the lead from 1.6 seconds down to 0.7 seconds between lap 9 and lap 11.

Wheldon got within a car length of McNeilly on lap 14 and as he attempted a pass for the lead on lap 17, an incident with DEForce’s Jeshua Allianell and JHDD’s Timothy Carel in the final corner brought out the caution and forced a one-lap shootout.

Ribeiro and Elkin both got past Wheldon on the last lap shootout and VRD’s Max Taylor rounded. Taylor maintained his championship lead.

For full results, check out usfjuniors.com/results/live-timing