David Malukas Completes Pro Mazda Sweep in Road America

By Aaron Bearden, Open Wheel Editor

David Malukas entered the Road America weekend in search of his first Pro Mazda victory.

He emerged with two of them.

Malukas and BN Racing teammate Toby Sowery capped off a dominant weekend with their second-straight one-two result in Saturday’s Pro Mazda Race 2. Harrison Scott followed in third, giving the weekend’s two races the same podium on both days.

“Obviously the team is going wild right now,” Malukas told Motorsports Tribune. “Yesterday the win was more for me. I felt like I had this pressure off of me. I finally got it. Like I said yesterday, the curse was released.

“But today was more for the team. They got P1 and P2 both days. They’ve been working so hard. This is still our first year as a team, the team’s brand new. I just see them working every night before this week, working seven days a week and all night.”

While Malukas enjoyed another dominant victory up front, his teammate’s trip to second proved much more arduous. Sowery emerged with a second-place result in his first race as Malukas’ teammate on Friday, but a fourth-place qualifying effort provided a steep challenge in his quest for a double-podium.

As it turned out, Sowery’s trip to the front would come quicker than anticipated. A battle between Carlos Cunha and Rinus VeeKay in the opening sprint to Turn 1 allowed Sowery an opportunity to make a three-wide move. That transitioned to an intense three laps of racing, before Sowery emerged with another second-place run.

“IThere was so much going on,” Sowery said of the battle. “There were cars in front, left, right. It was like NASCAR, when they’re going down the straight boxed in.

“It was an exciting first lap. I’m surprised that everyone made it through, because we were so close. I thought I was going to run into the back of one of the Juncos (Racing) cars, and I assume they thought the same at one point.”

Scott took advantage of the ill-handling Veekay and Cunha to rise to third over the course of the event. Parker Thompson followed in fourth, with Veekay completing the top five. Cunha, Andres Gutierrez, Oliver Askew, String Ray Robb and Robert Megennis completed the top 10.

Next up for Pro Mazda is a trip to the streets of Toronto on July 13-15.

Pro Mazda Race 2 Results

1. David Malukas
2. Toby Sowery
3. Harrison Scott
4. Parker Thompson
5. Rinus Veekay
6. Carlos Cunha
7. Andres Gutierrez
8. Oliver Askew
9. Sting Ray Robb
10. Robert Megennis
11. Nikita Lastochkin
12. Antonio Serravalle
13. Charles Finelli
14. Raul Guzman