PORTLAND, Oregon — As the 2018 Mazda Road to Indy presented to Cooper Tires racing action comes to a conclusion this weekend at Portland International Raceway, all three championships have very talented drivers fighting hard for their first race wins of the year despite not being in title contention.

In Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires, Belardi Auto Racing’s Aaron Telitz has had by all accounts a difficult season. After completing less than a mile across the first three races of the season, the 2016 champion of the Pro Mazda Championship presented by Cooper Tires scored eight top-five finishes across the first 15 races of the season. However, his level of aggression is unchanged despite his position in the championship behind series points leader Pato O’Ward.

“It’s the last race of the year; I obviously want to win, and I think the other guys who are in the title fight are going to be a little bit more reserved than I would be,” Telitz said. “I think their full attack mode might be slightly less. I don’t think Pato’s about to fight for a position too hard this weekend, Colton (Herta) probably will because Colton wants to win, but it’s really just going to come down to who gets the car set up well for qualifying here.”

Some might expect Telitz to sharply crank up the aggression to get himself a win but there’s a good reason why that’s not the case.

“If you want to pay for my crash damage, I’m all for it so let me know!”

Telitz will start third for Saturday's Indy Lights race at 5:05 p.m. ET.

Moving to Pro Mazda, Oliver Askew currently sits third in the championship standings. The defending champion of the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship powered by Mazda races for Cape Motorsports and has seven top-five finishes so far this season.

“It’s a fact that we haven’t won any races this year but that’s not going to change how I approach the weekend,” Askew said. “Yeah, I mean we’re still in it for points so I’m not going to go in there (aggressively) and just make risky decisions because we still get prizes for third and that’ll be a really good way to end the season. I’m happy to be in the position we are in now and we showed some good speed in practice.”

Askew qualified in second place for Saturday’s Pro Mazda race at 7:50 p.m. ET.

In USF2000, Kaylen Frederick has had a mixed bag of a season for Pabst Racing Services. The Maryland native finished below 10th place in three of the first four races of the year before getting three podium finishes and then had three finishes of 19th or below at Mid-OhioSports Car Course.

While Cape Motorsports’s Kyle Kirkwood locked up the drivers championship at Mid-Ohio, Frederick fell several positions in the standings but Portland can provide a chance for a rebound after compromising his championship position in late July.

“For the past few races, especially at Mid-Ohio, I was taking some higher percentage (risk) moves that paid off sometimes but not all the time,” said Frederick. “So here I’m really just trying to see what I can really do because obviously in practice I’ve had the pace and if I can put everything together, I should be in a really good situation for the races and in qualifying.”

Frederick put himself in good position to do well in race one with a second starting position for the 4:10 p.m. ET start. All races can be viewed on the INDYCAR YouTube page with timing and scoring found at racecontrol.indycar.com.