Tough Luck for Team SLR on the Outskirts of St. Louis

Early Mechanical Issue Foils Pro-Am Victory Bid for Barry Boes; Bizarre End to Jake Finch’s TA2 Debut as Loose Tire Barrier Rolls Into His Path

Overview

Date: May 12, 2024

Event: WWTR SpeedTour (Round 4 of 12)

Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli

Division: Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series

Location: World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois

Layout: 1.6-mile, eight-turn road course

Format: 63 laps or 75 minutes

Weather: Sunny, mid-70s

Winner: Ben Maier of Nitro Motorsports

TeamSLR:

Jake Finch – Started 7^th, Finished 17^th (Contact, completed 44/57 laps)

Barry Boes – Started 14^th, Finished 19^th (Oil line, completed 5/57 laps

Jake Finch, Driver, No. 17 Phoenix Construction/SLR-M1 Racecars:

“I just went off into (turn) one and they started wrecking and I didn’t really see where they went. I thought I had it all missed and just had a tire barrier come out there and make it a bad day. It was a learning experience, learning about all the rules in this series that are a little bit different than what we’re used to, it was a little bit of a struggle with that. Overall, I think it was a solid weekend. Qualifying seventh I felt like was pretty good. Through practice we got better and better, just did a terrible job in the race, so that’s something that needs to be cleaned up and hopefully we’ll be better next time.”

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

“It’s been a rough stretch of bad luck for me. Not related to this weekend’s effort, but had a blowout at Sonoma in the Western Championship race a few weeks ago, and then lost a motor at Laguna Seca in another Western Championship race last weekend. Then, the oil line that let go today likely was the result of me going off into the tire barrier during practice yesterday. At the start of the race, it was really loose, which might have been the result of having to replace a right-front tire that went flat in qualifying, so I don’t know if it was that or just the fact that we had a full load of fuel. Looking ahead to better days, for sure, starting at Lime Rock.”

Next Up

Round five of the 2024 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series takes TeamSLR to Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, for the Lime Rock SpeedTour May 24-25. The two-day weekend kicks off with a TA2 test session Friday, May 24, at 11:25 a.m. EDT, followed by official practice at 2:25 p.m., and qualifying at 5:35 p.m. Race time Saturday, May 25, is 1:15 p.m. for the 68-lap, 75-minute race with series partner MAVTV providing live television coverage augmented via live video stream on the Trans Am channel on YouTube.

-TeamSLR-