Indy NXT Barber: Abel claims maiden Indy NXT victory

A 23-year-old Kentucky native, Abel fended off the challenges of Nolan Siegel and managed all 35 laps around the 2.3-mile, 17-turn natural terrain road course, which ended under caution.

The win comes in Abel’s 30th Indy NXT start after finishing second on three other occasions.

Behind Abel and Siegel in third was James Roe, with rookie Caio Collet and Louis Foster finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.

The initial start was waved off and the field was sorted into a single file to the green flag, which officially flew on lap 2 of 35.

Abel (Abel Motorsprts) got a clean jump at the start, ahead of Siegel’s No. 38 HMD Motorsports entry and Roe (Andretti Global).

The early running saw Louis Foster (Andretti Global) making up the most ground, marching up to 12th in the opening four laps after electrical issues forced him to start 21st (last).

However, the action was halted on lap 5 after Yuven Sundaramoorthy (Abel Motorsports) stopped on the racetrack in the run up to Turn 16 with a mechanical issue, which brought out the yellow flag.

The race restarted on lap 7, with Abel holding steady over Siegal. Meanwhile, the same restart saw Foster pull an outside pass up the hill through Turn 2 on Salvador de Alba Jr. (Andretti Cape) and then put sights on Callum Hedge (HMD Motorsports).

While the rest of the field remained unchanged, the fight was on at the front as Siegel applied the pressure on Abel, staying in his tire tracks until lap 10 when he made a failed attempt at an over-under move that was fended off successfully by Abel.

Foster continued his climb, elevating to seventh by lap 11 and slowly gaining on team-mate Jamie Chadwick.

Abel settled into the lead and held roughly an advantage of 0.8s for the next 6 laps, which widened to 1s over the next three laps.

With seven laps to go, the best battle on track was between Chadwick and Foster for sixth as the pair were just a couple of car length apart.

When the laps ticked down to five to go, Abel held a 1s advantage over Siegel and 3.5s over third-place man Roe. Chadwick came under fire from Foster, who fell back into the clutches of 2023 USF Pro 2000 champion Myles Rowe.

The battle was on and as Chadwick attempted to fight back with two laps to go and pull an inside pass on Foster, she tagged the Turn 1 curbing and lost the backend of the car to end up in the gravel trap. During the chaos, the end of the lap saw both Foster and Roe get by Michael d’Orlando (Andretti Cape)

Although Chadwick got it re-fired, it was enough to bring out caution, handing Abel his maiden Indy NXT victory. Chadwick’s promising run ended with a 19th-place finish.