Chaves takes Pocono Indy Lights 100 - Speedway Digest

Gabby Chaves picked up where he left off in practice by dominating the Pocono Indy Lights 100 Saturday.

Chaves cruised to a 7.7 second margin of victory over his closest competitor in points, Andretti Autosport driver Zach Veach. The win put the icing on the cake for the Indy Lights points leader

“My birthday’s Monday so I guess that’s a good early 21^st birthday celebration,” Chaves said.

“The real one will be Monday,” he added jokingly.

The Belardi Racing driver made a three-wide pass for the lead on pole-sitter Zach Veach and Luis Razia on lap 7 and never looked back.

“We’re racing 100 percent and pushing 100% percent every lap out there,” Chaves said about the racing. “None of us wanna to give up the lead. We all wanna win so I think it’s good, hard racing.”

This is the first time Chaves has won back-to-back races in his Indy Lights career, but it doesn’t change his approach to each race.

“I come to every race weekend with the same mentality,” he said. “I don’t think about what’s happened before. I just think about what I have to do this weekend.”

All of the practice, qualifying and race were all in one day at Pocono.

“To have everything in one day messes up your rhythm and your schedule,” Chaves added. “You wanna work up and peak at qualifying and lead them at performance and have a great performance. Today you have to go out there and perform our way.”

His closest points competitor Veach won the pole and led the first six laps before surrendering the lead to Chaves.

“We had a fast car and Gabby just drove flawless,” Veach said. “We just gotta work a little bit harder coming back to Toronto in (two weeks).

Veach held off a challenge from rookie Jack Harvey to finish runner-up and better his previous Indy Lights finish of fourth at the Tricky Triangle.

“I’m happy to be here on the podium,” Veach said of the finish. “Last year we came, it didn’t go exactly how we wanted to. We’re learning and Pocono was nice to me this time.”

Rookie driver Luis Razia battled with Veach for second on lap 7, but Razia lost control of his No. 7 car and hit the inside retaining wall and prematurely ended his day.

Third-generation driver Matthew Brabham and Juan Pablo Garcia finished out the top five.

The Pocono Indy Lights 100 will be televised after the conclusion of the Pocono IndyCar 500 Sunday on NBC Sports Network.

Pocono Indy Lights 100 Results

1. #5 Gabby Chaves

2. #26 Zach Veach

3. #42 Jack Harvey (R)

4. #83 Matthw Brabham (R)

5. #10 Juan Pablo Garcia

6. #24 Scott Anderson (R)

7. #77 Juan Piedrahita (R)

8. #7 Luis Razia (R)

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Kyle Magda

Currently, I’m a journalism student in college who enjoys the sport of racing. I've been following NASCAR in-depth since 2001.Along with my love of racing, I’m also into baseball, football (college & pro), and college basketball.I also have my own website, The Life of Kyle, where I write about various topics.And to get my feet wet into radio, I have my own show called Overdrive. I started it with my friend. Since we can’t record together most of the time, we have our own versions. I cover NASCAR and ARCA, and he takes Formula One and IndyCar.Not forgetting to mention, I have my own YouTube channel as well.As for race tracks, I’ve gone to races at Pocono, Watkins Glen, Daytona, Dover, Loudon and a few local short tracks as well. I hope to cross the Indianapolis 500 off my list in the future. I hope to become a man of many hats.