Photo credit: Luis Diaz Photo

It may be only February, but the first race of the 2025 YACademy Winter Series had all the makings of a thrilling mid-season race: a photo finish, a charge from behind, and plenty of on-track action.

The series, a six-race sprint over the course of a week often billed as a preseason competition between competitors in the upcoming USF Juniors season, opened on Saturday afternoon when Canadian Ty Fisher charged from outside the top ten to take a win at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Fisher, 14, made a move in the final corners on Zanella Racing teammate Leonardo Escorpioni and beat him to the line on the exit of the third and fourth oval turn. Fisher’s margin of victory was 0.032 seconds. 

Right behind them in the draft was Exclusive Autosport’s Evan Cooley, who rounded out the podium. With only three laps to go, Fisher found himself behind Escorpioni and Cooley before making moves on both to take the race win.

Those late-stage moves were the end of a methodical comeback from the British Columbia native throughout the 18-lap race which saw him qualify ninth and fall back to twelfth on the opening lap. After a series of incidents impacting those further up the 24-car field, Fisher found himself knocking on the door of the top five at the midway point of the race.

His continued persistence paid off as he ended up at the front of the field. It took Fisher only ten laps to make up the places he needed to get within striking distance of Escorpioni.

Sitting behind the pack of three cars at the front was another pack of three very close together, as DEForce Racing’s Pato Gonzalez beat out polesitter and VRD Racing’s Joao Vergara for fourth position. Fellow VRD driver Matan Achituv missed out on a top five position by only nine thousandths of a second.

Racing will continue tomorrow at Homestead before the series packs up and moves to a midweek finishing round at NOLA Motorsports Park. All races can be watched on the FARA USA YouTube channel. 

Full unofficial results:

1. Ty Fisher
2. Leonardo Escorpioni
3. Evan Cooley
4. Patricio Gonzalez
5. Joao Vergara
6. Matan Achituv
7. Hudson Potter
8. Vilho Aatola
9. Rodrigo Gonzalez
10. Justin di Lucia
11. Diego Ardiles
12. Connor Aspley
13. Cooper Shipman
14. JT Hoskins
15. Lincoln Day
16. Thomas Nordquist
17. Kaylee Countryman
18. Maddie Colleran
19. Oliver Wheldon
20. Brenden Cooley
21. Karel Staut
22. Ryan Giannetta
23. Emma Scarbrough
24. Diego Guiot