Although Pabst Racing Services could not prevent Cape Motorsport’s Kyle Kirkwood from winning the driver’s title in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship powered by Mazda, the Wisconsin-based team is still fighting hard to win its second USF2000 team championship in a row.
“It’s really important to us,” said Augie Pabst III, the team president. “Obviously defending it from last year, but also full well knowing (that) having four cars in the field that we should be winning the team championship.
“Winning races from here on out is really the main goal and as long as our guys aren’t getting into each other, the team championship will come along with that. Yeah, we’ve missed our mark for the first half of the season (the driver’s championship), for sure, and we’re trying to correct that going forward.”
Pabst Racing won the 2017 team championship despite its drivers – Rinus VeeKay (second), Calvin Ming (fifth) and Lucas Kohl (seventh) – all finishing behind Oliver Askew in the point standings. In USF2000, teams score points based on where their two highest-finishing cars place in each race. A win earns 22 points, second place gives 18 points, third place 15 points and then scaling down to one point for 10th place onward. Single-car teams receive three points on top of what their one entry earns to help them compete with multi-car teams.
Heading into the season-ending doubleheader race weekend at Portland International Raceway from Aug. 31-Sept. 2, Pabst Racing holds a narrow seven-point lead over Cape Motorsports in the first rung of the Mazda Road to Indy development ladder sanctioned by INDYCAR.
Through the first 12 races this year, Pabst drivers have 12 podium finishes and four pole positions between drivers Rasmus Lindh (second in points), Kohl (fourth), Ming (fifth) and Kaylen Frederick (sixth). All four drivers have shown that they are capable of winning races, though aggressive driving among the teammates can leave some points on the table.
“We can only do so much from the team standpoint,” Pabst said. “We can tell them what to do and what not to do, but at the end of the day, they’re steering the cars. They’re also doing the best they can do and there’s been some mistakes and lessons learned.”
Including Lindh and Ming not finishing at Road America thanks to separate incidents on Lap 7 or Lindh colliding with Frederick in the first race at Mid-Ohio, sending the latter off track. Teammates collecting each other is the last thing a team owner wants to see.
“At some point when you’re making mistakes, you can only have so much patience,” said Pabst. “That’s kind of unfortunately gotten us to this point, where now it’s too late for the driver’s championship. So, (it’s a) great season in that we’ve had amazing talent here. But at the same time, it just hasn’t flowed the way it should, I guess, is the best way for me to put it.”
With Kirkwood’s overwhelming success this season, winning 10 of 12 races to date, and with Alex Baron winning the other two for Swan/RJB Motorsports, there is a chance that Pabst Racing could go winless in USF2000 for the first time since 2013.
“It's been really hard to swallow," the team president admitted. “I believe we’ve won at least one race per year since I think 2014 and actually multiple races in 2015 and 2016 and 2017.
“For us as a team, it’s really important for us to look back every season and say we’ve won this many races, and right now to be saying we haven’t won is pretty tough.”
Looking ahead to 2019, Pabst indicated that the team will be back in USF2000 and plans to have two cars competing in the Pro Mazda Championship presented by Cooper Tires, the middle rung of the MRTI ladder.