Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography

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This is part two of a two-part series previewing drivers for the upcoming USF Pro Championships fall combine. If you want to read part one, focusing drivers who are mostly or entirely new to the USF Pro Championships, you can read it here.

We’re less than 48 hours away from the start of the USF Pro Championships fall combine, which, historically, has given us a great idea of where pace lies among the field.

Max Garcia, Sam Corry, and Max Taylor all either ran fastest or were near the top of the timesheets throughout the weekend on the Indianapolis Road Course last year and were among the best performers. Once the season rolled around, those three finished at the top of the driver’s standings.

In USF Pro 2000, Lochie Hughes and Christian Brooks both led at least one session in fall combine testing. Those two were rewarded with moves up to Indy NXT for this year’s test. They will be on track tomorrow with an Indy NXT field that ranges from Formula 2 race winners like Dennis Hauger to a contingent of 11 drivers who competed in either USF2000 or USF Pro 2000.

The drivers who made it to the next level came from a wide range of junior teams, nearly all of whom will be represented at this year’s fall combine. In the interest of organization, here’s a breakdown of each of those young returning drivers by the team they will be competing for.

Turn 3 Motorsport

Turn 3 Motorsport is bringing the largest contingent of drivers in USF Pro 2000, the only series they compete in. As a team, they’ll be riding high following their championship in 2024 with Lochie Hughes, who now drives in Indy NXT for Andretti Global.

The one driver to watch in this lineup is Leandro Juncos, who stands out as an intriguing prospect after running a partial season with DEForce in USF Juniors this past year. He picked up a few top-10 finishes there. More impressively, he had the chance to participate in a much smaller test at Mid-Ohio last month, where he was consistently on pace against some serious USF2000 talent, including Joey Brienza and Michael Costello. Keep an eye on how he responds to the jump forward.

As for the other drivers, Alessandro de Tullio is well-known as one of the best karters in the country and scored three top-10 finishes in six races with BN Racing to close out a partial USF Pro 2000 season. Additionally, Tyke Durst is returning to Turn 3 for the fall combine after finishing seventeenth in the standings while running full-time for the team in USF Pro 2000, picking up a top-10 at Road America.

Jay Howard Driver Development

Jay Howard Driver Development will bring a total of eight drivers across the three levels. Frankie Mossman and Michael Costello, who have been teammates at JHDD for three years now, will pair up in USF Pro 2000 this weekend. In 2024, Mossman was highly competitive in USF Pro 2000, while Costello was a USF2000 race winner at Portland.

The team also continues its strong tradition of promoting drivers through the ranks. Liam McNeilly was one of the top rookies in the entire USF Pro Championships and, after narrowly missing out on the USF Juniors title, will logically move up to test in USF2000. He joins Timmy Carel, who was 11th in USF Juniors but finished much stronger than he started, with eight top-10 finishes in the last 11 races — a mark only McNeilly and series champion Max Taylor met.

As for returning USF Juniors drivers, JT Hoskins and Griffin Yellin will test after running limited seasons in 2024. They both had their best finishes of the season at Portland Race 1, finishing 11th and 12th, respectively.

DEForce Racing

DEForce had a down year in 2024 as a team across all levels, finishing fourth in the team standings in USF2000 and seventh in USF Pro 2000. Additionally, their USF Juniors program did not win a race this season after winning 14 races in the past two seasons.

As they look to build momentum toward bouncing back in 2025, their fall combine roster includes some very promising talent. In USF Pro 2000, they will run three-time USF2000 podium finisher Eliot Cox, who was in 2024. Cox will be joined by George Garciarce and Nicholas Monteiro, two drivers who both drove for the team in USF Pro 2000 in 2024 and were able to achieve consistent finishes, finishing 10th and 13th in the standings.

Their USF2000 lineup features the same two drivers they finished the season with in USF Juniors. One of them, Brady Golan, will head to his home state in a few weeks to debut in Formula Regional Americas. He ran double duty in USF Juniors and USF2000, having his best weekend in USF2000 at the end of the season at Portland, where he finished in the top 12 in every race. He’ll be joined by Jeshua Alianell, who finished his USF Juniors season with a tenth-place finish at Portland, his second-best of the season.

Pabst Racing

Pabst won the USF2000 driver’s championship with Max Garcia, finished second in the standings with Sam Corry, and, if that were not impressive enough, managed to get consistent finishes with an eighth-place finishing Hudson Schwartz. While Schwartz has gone on to race abroad in the Italian F4 Championship, Garcia and Corry will pair up again at the fall combine, as they could be the most prominent 1-2 punch not only in testing but in the entire USF Pro Championships next year if they both progress.

They’ll be joined by Jacob Douglas, a multi-time race winner in USF2000 in 2023 who spent some time in 2024 racing a partial schedule in the GB3 Championship in Britain. Douglas will be one of the most prominent drivers returning to the series in 2025 and should be competitive immediately.

In USF2000, they also pick up G3 Argyros for testing, one of the best rookies of the season in USF Juniors. Argyros picked up three podium finishes during the season and finished seventh in the standings.

Comet/NCMP Racing

Logan Adams will continue to run in the lone Comet entry after picking up three top-10 finishes and a fourth place at Mid-Ohio in a season where he continued to build on the progress he made in 2023, where he shined at the Toronto race weekend in USF2000 and landed on the podium.

BN Racing

BN Racing’s sophomore season since their return to the USF Pro Championships will see them field a very intriguing lineup across their two USF Pro 2000 cars at the fall combine.

Mac Clark will join the team after experiencing his first winless season in open-wheel racing since his F1600 days at age 13. Clark has won at nearly every level of racing he has competed in and might benefit from the change in pace with a new team. BN Racing will also welcome one of the USF Pro Championships’ most accomplished and experienced drivers as they continue to make forward progress.

Clark is joined by Cooper Becklin, who, after finishing third in Formula Regional Americas in 2023, ran eight races in the second half of this year’s USF Pro 2000 season with TJ Speed Motorsports. Becklin scored three top-10 finishes in the last four races.

TJ Speed Motorsports

TJ Speed’s lone driver with USF Pro Championships experience is Ariel Elkin, who was one of the breakout stars of USF Juniors last season with InterMS, winning three races. Elkin also became the first Israeli driver since Alon Day in 2012 to secure a top-10 finish in an American open-wheel junior series when he crossed the line in fifth during the season opener.

Elkin will be testing in USF Pro 2000 and will be a driver to follow with intrigue, as he will be thrust into a field this weekend that has much more age and experience than the USF Juniors field he grew accustomed to succeeding in.

VRD Racing

While many of the drivers at VRD did not compete in the USF Pro Championships in 2024, a few are returning to the series and the team. The most prominent is Max Taylor, who was the USF Juniors champion in 2024 and was in contention to be the USF Pro Championships’ first-ever double champion, as he found himself in the USF2000 title fight throughout most of the season.

Taylor’s dominance was one of the largest surprise stories among young drivers in the country. He’ll test this weekend in USF Pro 2000 as he looks to build on his seven race wins in 2024.

Christian Cameron will return to the team in USF2000 after finishing 10th in USF Juniors, following a sneakily consistent season where he picked up top-five finishes at both Portland and Road America. Speaking of VRD’s USF Juniors program, Joao Vergara will hop to VRD after finishing 8th in USF Juniors last season. If he chooses to spend another year in the series, keep Vergara in mind as a potential underdog candidate for the USF Juniors title race in 2025, as he showed great pace at places like Barber and Road America, which the series will return to in 2025.

Exclusive Autosport

Exclusive are bringing the largest lineup to the fall combine, with three drivers in USF Pro 2000, four in USF2000 and two in USF Juniors. Their USF Pro 2000 lineup will carry Joey Brienza, who won Rookie of the Year in USF2000 after finishing fifth in the standings. Their other two drivers, Evan Cooley and Carson Etter, also carry USF2000 experience from 2024. Keep an eye on Cooley in particular, who scored a debut podium on the very track he’ll be testing on this past season.

Their USF2000 testing lineup is headlined by Jack Jeffers, who finished third and fifth in two seasons in USF Juniors. Anthony Martella will also move up to test in USF2000 after running a few rounds in both USF Juniors and USF2000 last season with Exclusive. His best finish was 10th in Juniors, which he achieved three times.

Rounding out the guys with experience in the USF Pro Championships, Lucas Fecury will return to a USF2000 car after finishing 14th in the series in 2024.

InterMS

One of the two entries — both in USF Juniors — for InterMS in their second season since returning to the USF Pro Championships is currently still up in the air.

The other entry will be filled by Hudson Potter, who transferred midseason to the team. His performance improved in the latter half of the season, and he finished with his best weekend yet, placing in the top 15 in each race of the weekend at Portland.

Pole Position Motorsports

Also making an appearance at the fall combine is the brand-new team, Pole Position Motorsports, fielding one entry in USF Juniors. This will be driven by Connor Aspley, who was covered more extensively in part one of this preview for his karting achievements.

This weekend, we’ll see Pole Position on the track competing against the teams they’ll face in 2025 as they continue their push toward hopefully fielding a full-time entry next season.

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For more details on the USF Pro Championships fall combine, check out the press release regarding the event here. The test will not be streamed, but live timing will be available on the series website.