SPEEDWAY, Ind. – The month of May racing is in the books for Abel Motorsports, as the team prepares to get the summer swing underway. 

Jacob Abel and the Abel Motorsports team visited their first oval track of the year, Lucas Oil Raceway, for the Cooper Tires Freedom 90, the eighth round of the Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires. A different discipline for oval racing, Abel and the No. 51 Abel Construction/Crosley Brands got off to a great start on the weekend posting solid practice laps. Ultimately Abel qualified the 51-machine eighth. 

Rain was the story on Friday, as it rained on and off all weekend pushing the scheduled practice and 90-lap event back. The drivers, teams, series officials and fans waited all day long on Friday to see some racing action but unfortunately Mother Nature did not cooperate and, after five laps were completed behind the pace car, the race was pushed to Saturday morning.

Abel ran strong on Saturday holding steady in eighth and conserving his tires for a charge to the front later on in the race. With about 25 laps to go, Abel made his moves quickly making his way to sixth and hunting down fifth-placed Hunter McElrea. Running out of laps, 20-year-old Abel had to settle with a sixth-place finish. 

“It was definitely a good recovery for me and the Abel Motorsports boys after a tough qualifying session. We knew heading into qualifying that we didn’t have outright speed, but that we had a very fast race pace and that was something we wanted to capitalize on in the race. Ultimately, I am very happy with a sixth-place finish and taking some valuable data into the next oval at World Wide Technology Raceway,” said Abel. 

Abel Motorsports gets back to action at Road America on June 17-20 for rounds 9 and 10 of the Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires.