PALMETTO, Fla. – The USF Juniors Presented by Continental Tire season is reaching toward its high point. Only two event weekends remain for the 16-race campaign, starting with this week’s Andersen Corporate Woodworking Grand Prix of Lime Rock. Olivia Racing’s Karol Pasiewicz, from Lodz, Poland, currently holds a commanding 51-point advantage in the quest for a scholarship valued at $251,516 to graduate onto the next step of the USF Pro Championships ladder, USF2000, in 2027.
A pair of races will be run on Saturday, July 11, marking the series’ first appearance at the short but challenging 1.53-mile, seven-turn Lime Rock Park road course in Lakeville, Conn., as part of the highly anticipated NASCAR Craftsman Truck series event.
Despite running as a single-car entry with Olivia Racing and lining up against a phalanx of multi-car teams in which drivers can benefit from sharing critical information and data, Pasiewicz has put together a remarkable debut season of car racing.
The former European karting star started out with a hat-trick of second-place finishes on the hybrid oval/road course at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Next time out at Carolina Motorsports Park, he qualified on the front row of the grid for all three races, only to experience a sequence of disappointments and a best finish of only 11th.
Undaunted, Pasiewicz bounced back by dominating all three races at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. He then added two more pole positions and a pair of top-five results last week at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course to cement himself as a firm favorite to secure top honors.
The battle behind Pasiewicz is intense with Fairfax, Va.-based Lebanese Max Mokarem currently holding down second place. The next seven contenders are blanketed by a mere 37 points. A maximum score for each race comprises 30 points for the win plus additional points for pole position, fastest race lap and leading most laps.
Mokarem leads the charge for Zanella Racing, which won the 2025 title chase through the efforts of Florida-based Brazilian Leonardo Escorpioni (who now tops the USF Pro 2000 championship chase after an emphatic hat-trick last weekend at Mid-Ohio). Mokarem won two of the opening three races.
Fellow rookie Zanella teammates Olivier Mrak, from Ottawa, Que., Canada, and another Florida-based Brazilian, Victor Couto, have been knocking on the door of Victory Lane, as have Canadian Cole Medeiros and Bex Cranston as the leading two representatives of Exclusive Autosport.
Cranston, in particular, has high expectations for this week, hailing from nearby Greenwich, Conn., and having claimed his maiden podium finish just last weekend. He also posted the fastest time during a rain-affected test day on Tuesday.
The two youngest drivers in the field, Edward Kennedy, from Mont-Tremblant, Que., and Dutchman Dean Hoogendoorn, were unable to take part in the opening two events of the season which occurred before their 14th birthdays, but they have burst onto the scene in recent weeks.
Kennedy became the youngest ever USF Juniors race winner when he took the checkered flag last Friday at Mid-Ohio (and promptly won again on Saturday), while fellow former karting star Hoogendoorn, a member of the Williams F1 Team Driver Academy, who is just four days younger, secured a pair of podium finishes. Hoogendoorn also was fastest in two of the three Tuesday test sessions.
A condensed schedule will comprise 30 minutes of practice at 10:00 a.m. EDT today, July 10, and a single 20-minute qualifying session at 2:45 p.m. which will determine the starting order for a pair of 35-lap races on Saturday at 11:15 a.m. and 4:15 p.m.
Complete coverage can be found on the free USF Pro Championships App, YouTube channel and at usfjuniors.com.