Lincoln-Way East senior Evan Cooley has another eventful run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – Mokena’s Evan Cooley and the first turn of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course aren’t on the best of terms these days.

Last year, he fractured his hand in a crash at that testing, 90-degree corner. Saturday, the 18-year-old came out unscathed personally, but his Exclusive Autosport car wasn’t so fortunate. Diving to the inside for position with six laps remaining in a USF2000 series race, Cooley locked up his brakes and spun across the apex of the turn, clipping Christian Cameron’s car with his rear wing as he slid across the corner, and ended up losing the wing, which sat in the grass for the rest of the race.

Cooley, a Lincoln-Way East senior who started fourth, made it back to the pits in his open-wheel car but had to park his damaged machine and was classified 19th in the 20-car field. Cameron, innocent victim, was punted into 18th.

“I kept getting blocked,” Cooley said after a debriefing session that lasted twice the length of the 15-lap race. “I was much faster than everyone else around us. I managed to avoid a lot of people, but the series doesn’t penalize anyone.”

Cooley, who had finished 11th in Friday’s race, had made a brilliant defensive move in the same turn on Lap 8 of Saturday’s clash, escaping what could have been a three-car collision with Caleb Gafrarar and Sebastian Garzon, but wasn’t so fortunate the second time.

Teammate Jack Jeffers of San Antonio took third place behind winner Thomas Schrage and Teddy Musslla of VRD Racing and moved into the lead in the season standings with 165 points to Liam McNeilly’s 163. McNeilly missed the weekend’s races because of visa problems.

“The rest of the year’s been really good,” said Cooley, who took third at the second of three races at New Orleans in mid-April and who is sixth in the season standings.

In an IndyNXT race, Jordan Missig of Joliet finished 17th in a 21-car field, 46.5 seconds behind winner Dennis Hauger of Norway. Missig, driving for Abel Motorsports, is ninth in the season standings, 109 points behind leader Hauger.