Team SLR Scores Pro-Am Class Win at Sebring

Barry Boes Debuts With Victorious Race Within the TA2 Race; Rookie Gavan Boschele Drives to 16^th; Early Accident Foils Bid for Thomas Ellis

Overview

Date: Feb. 24, 2024

Event: Sebring SpeedTour (Round 1 of 12)

Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli

Division: Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series

Location: Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway

Layout: 3.74-mile, 17-turn road course

Format: 27 laps or 75 minutes

Weather: Sunny, upper-60s

Winner: Connor Zilisch of Silver Hare Racing

TeamSLR:

Barry Boes – Started 22^nd, Finished 13^th (Running, completed 27/27 laps

Gavan Boschele – Started 12^th, Finished 16^th (Running, completed 27/27 laps)

Thomas Ellis – Started 24^th, Finished 34^th (Accident, completed 10/27 laps)

Noteworthy:

Sixth-year TA2 driver Barry Boes’ 13^th-place finish bested the 14 cars in the 38-car TA2 field that are competing for the season-long Pro-Am championship.

Austin Green of Peterson Racing, the 2023 TA2 Rookie of the Year, came home fifth Saturday to become the top-finishing M1Racecars entry.

Barry Boes, Driver No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Ford Mustang:

“This feels absolutely incredible. It’s amazing that I’m here today. Accio means ‘to summon,’ and I summoned a victory today and it feels fantastic. Keith (Prociuk, third-place-finishing Pro-Am driver) and I often qualify near each other, and he races really well and I figured I’d follow him up to the front as much as I could. And when he got hung up at the initial start, it gave me an opportunity and it feels fantastic.”

Gavan Boschele, Driver No. 28 SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

“We started 12^th and I kind of messed up on the first lap, got caught up starting too far back. That’s the main thing, you’ve got start up front. I got shuffled back and locked up the brakes and kind of drove through, and I ended up getting a penalty for that. So that put me all the way in the back and we ended up fighting our way back to 16^th. Not the greatest, but I’m still learning everything and we’ll come back stronger. I have a lot of takeaways from this just to build on, racecraft and everything else. Can’t thank all the M1Racecars guys enough and we’ll come back strong at Road Atlanta.”

Thomas Ellis, Driver No. 8 Averitt Express/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

“It was my first weekend back in a few years. We struggled all weekend to try to get some pace in the car. I went into the race looking for momentum, just to find a little bit of pace, then lay back. There was no winning race on the first corner, it was just a matter of waiting for the first caution. We got that first caution pretty soon after I picked off a couple of cars. Then, unfortunately, in turn 10 on the restart, I just got punted off the track. It broke something in the back of the car and I couldn’t continue. In the bigger picture, I feel really good now after getting all the nooks and crannies out this weekend following the long layoff. The next weekend I get into the car, I feel like I’ll have a lot more momentum moving forward. I’ll feel a lot better about what I’ll be able to do in qualifying, which will be important to not have to deal with all the crazies at the back of the field.”

Next Up

Round two of the 2024 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series is the Road Atlanta SpeedTour on March 21-23 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. The weekend kicks off with a pair of TA2 test sessions Thursday afternoon, March 21. Official TA2 practice begins at 11:25 a.m. EDT Friday, March 22, followed by qualifying at 2:30 p.m. Start time for Saturday’s 40-lap, 75-minute race around the 2.54-mile, 11-turn Road Atlanta circuit is 12:45 p.m. Series partner MAVTV will provide live television coverage augmented with a live video stream on the Trans Am channel on YouTube.

-TeamSLR-