Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography

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The families of two endurance racing legends were represented at the top of the timesheets of this weekend’s USF Juniors fall combine testing.

Joao Vergara’s uncle, Ozz Negri, and Alex Popow’s dad, Alex Popow Sr., finished 1-2 at the Rolex 24 twelve years and ago and today, Vergara and Popow cleaned house in all USF Juniors testing sessions on Friday and Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Vergara and Popow also were driving for different teams than they drove for in the 2024 season. Popow was driving for InterMS and Vergara was competing for VRD at the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. While Vergara took part in the three sessions on Saturday and the three on Sunday, Popow only took part in the Sunday ones.

Originally, InterMS’s Augusto Soto-Schirripa was faster than Vergara in one of the first two Saturday sessions but was disqualified from the official results after failing to reach minimum weight. Soto-Schirripa was able to make weight in the third session and the experienced driver finished second, just over a tenth and a half off of Vergara’s 1:29.764 before Soto-Schirripa handed his car off to Popow to test on Sunday.

In total, Vergara had the fastest time in the weekend in the second Saturday session when he hit a 1:29.631. The time is promising for the pace of VRD, a team which was at the very top of USF Juniors last season with series champion Max Taylor and race winner Sebastian Wheldon.

Popow had the next best time after Vergara, setting a 1:29.799 during the second session on Sunday.

Behind those three, the rest of the field carried a wide variety for drivers that each had backgrounds ranging from Europe to karting to other open-wheel experience in the U.S. Four of those drivers really stood out as having great performances.

The first was Exclusive Autosport’s Brenden Cooley, brother of USF2000 driver Evan Cooley. Brenden Cooley had a very promising weekend at Indianapolis from the get-go, setting the fastest time for any rookie in session 1 with a 1:30.920. He finished in the top half of every session he ran and showed improvement throughout as he dropped his laptimes by a few tenths to finish around 0.7-0.8 seconds off of the very fastest times in USF Juniors in one of his first tests.

Jay Howard Driver Development’s JT Hoskins also had a great weekend. Driving for the Indiana-based team in their home state, Hoskins was consistently near the front of the field as well after only running a partial USF Juniors season in 2024. His best finish came in the first Saturday session, where his 1:31.197 put him only a couple tenths off of Vergara and Cooley. While others ebbed and flowed up and down the running order, Hoskins consistently stayed within 3rd-6th place in every session.

On the topic of drivers switching teams for 2025, Hudson Potter’s sessions with InterMS proved fruitful as he found himself sitting only a half-second off of the top spots even when the fastest times of the weekend were being set. Potter set a 1:30:326 in the second Sunday session which allowed for him to sit comfortably with one of the best times set at Indianapolis.

Finally, Ryan Giannetta impressed in his jump from the Skip Barber Race Series to run for VRD Racing. Giannetta was sitting in the top five throughout most of the weekend and pumped out a 1:30.266 to give himself the edge he needed to sit alongside plenty of the experienced drivers in the series who were testing. Giannetta could be a driver to watch out for to make the transition from Skip Barber to USF Juniors look seemless as many drivers have throughout recent years.

For full results, see https://www.usfjuniors.com/results