Reece Gold led home Jagger Jones and Ernie Francis Jr. in the first Indy NXT race of the weekend in Detroit, but Louis Foster on the first lap and Nolan Siegel on the last lap were victims of circumstances outside their control.
From pole position, Foster went straight into the lead ahead of Andretti Autosport colleague Hunter McElrea, but approaching the first turn – Turn 3 for starts and restarts – McElrea punted his teammate under braking and spun him into the wall.
It damaged the No. 27 car’s nose cone, but McElrea stayed out while the penalty call was inevitable once the race went green again.
Behind him, points leader Christian Rasmussen consigned himself to the back because he needed a new front wing after running his HMD Motorsports car into the back of teammate Reece Gold, while Kyffin Simpson also needed a new wing.
On the restart, McElrea led away but was called to the pits for avoidable contact, leaving Gold to hold off teammate Nolan Siegel and Rasmus Lindh, but a lap later Lindh was punted into a spin by an overambitious effort from Josh Green (HMD) who also spun himself broadside.
That allowed Jagger Jones to slot his Cape Motorsports car into third ahead of Jacob Abel (Abel Motorsports) and Enaam Ahmed (Cape).
A solid run of green-flag laps saw Gold running just under one second clear of Siegel on lap 15, with Jones 4s further adrift but 6.5s clear of Ahmed. James Roe was holding onto sixth despite an askew front wing on his Andretti car, while Danial Frost was up to seventh from 17th on the grid. Francis ran eighth ahead of Toby Sowery and W Series champion Jamie Chadwick.
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On lap 22 of the 45-lap race, out came the full course caution as Frost got squeezed into the wall on the outside of the braking zone for Turn 3 as he tried to draw alongside Roe. While Frost’s car was terminally damaged, there would be no penalty for Roe.
The restart at the end of lap 25 saw Gold under fierce pressure from Siegel but he occupied the inside line and retained the lead, while Jones immediately pulled away from Abel to keep third, the pair of them chased by Ahmed, Roe, Francis and Sowery. Christian Bogle of HMD was having one of his strongest runs in this series, and having deposed of Simpson he then also demoted Chadwick.
On lap 29, Francis grabbed sixth from Roe and moved onto the tail of Ahmed, leaving Roe to fend off Bogle. Meanwhile Sowery had been slipping back and then pitted with mechanical problems.
Siegel started ramping up the pressure on Gold on lap 34, forcing the leader to protect the inside line in heavy brake zones, but the significant order change that lap was for fifth, as Francis slipped past Ahmed, and started applying the pressure on Abel.
Bogle – who has been receiving coaching from reigning champion Linus Lundqvist – passed Roe for seventh on lap 36, while Rasmussen and McElrea pushed Chadwick out of the top 10, and then demoted Roe whose front wing damage appeared to be affecting his front-end tire wear.
On lap 39, Siegel’s efforts paid off, braking late and sticking around the outside of Gold through Turn 3 which gave him the inside line into Turn 4. Both drivers’ racing etiquette was perfect and the lead changed hands without contact.
With just three laps to go, Francis snatched fourth from Abel into Turn 8 — an amazing performance on this bumpy track, given that the Force Indy driver is nursing a broken wrist.
The drama wasn’t over. On the final lap, with just two corners to go, poor Siegel, holding a 5s lead, had a driveshaft let go, handing the lead back to Gold, who had the closely following Jones and Francis follow him across the line. The mortified Siegel trickled to a halt, allowing Abel, Ahmed, Bogle and McElrea past before he crossed the line.
The Indy NXT drivers hit the track again for race two in Detroit at 12:45 p.m. Sunday.