American driver Spencer Pigot will start on pole for tomorrow’s third round of the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda after posting the fastest time in an intensely fought half-hour qualifying session this afternoon on the Streets of St. Petersburg.

Scott Rettich, from Camden, Ohio, secured top honors in the equally hotly contested National Class with the Alliance Autosport team’s Formula Enterprise Van Diemen-Mazda.

Pigot, 18, from Orlando, Fla., bested teammate Australia’s  Matthew Brabham by a scant 0.002 seconds to ensure a sweep of the front row of the grid for locally based Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing. The pair had split the victories in the opening races of the season one week ago at Sebring, Fla.

The strong 34-car field provided a thrilling session that was interrupted only briefly by one red flag when Rettich spun, but he quickly recovered.

Brabham, 18, led the way for most of the session until Pigot found a clear lap with around four minutes remaining to move to the front. Brabham also improved shortly before the checkered flag but fell fractionally short.

Neil Alberico, 19, from Los Gatos, Calif., will start third for JDC MotorSports despite being halted early after clipping the wall and knocking the rear suspension out of alignment.

Matthew Di Leo (MDL Racing), 17, from Innisfil, Ont., Canada will line up on the outside of the second row of the grid ahead of Megenbier, 20, from Melrose Park, Ill., who did well to overcome a major accident during the opening practice session on Thursday evening to snare a position on Row Four. The Afterburner Autosport team opted to skip this morning’s practice session in order to ensure the car was as good as it could be for qualifying. Sebring pole-sitter Luigi Biangardi, 15, also from the Chicago area, drove another strong session to be sixth for ArmsUp Motorsports.

Also impressive was Michael Johnson, 19, from Flint, Mich. Johnson, who is paralyzed from the mid chest down following a motorcycle racing accident when he was 12, will line up 16th with a time just 1.472 seconds slower than the pole.

Rettich, the fastest National Class contender with a time of 1:15.306, edged RC Enerson (ZSports Midwest with Team E Racing), 15, from New Port Richey, Fla., by just 0.025s.

Source: USF2000 Media Release