TeamSLR Rides Momentum to Laguna Seca

14-Year-Old Tristan McKee Coming Off First TA2 Podium, Barry Boes Off Landmark Double-Win Weekend at Sonoma; Mike Skeen Looks To Return to Victory Lane Alongside Fellow M1 Racecars Competitors Jared Odrick, Brody Goble and Tim Carroll

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (April 30, 2025) – Fresh off Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series rookie Tristan McKee’s runner-up finish overall and Barry Boes’ landmark victories in both the national Pro-Am Challenge class and Western Championship race-within-a race last weekend at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, the TeamSLR and M1 Racecars contingent of drivers heads to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on a roll for Saturday’s 40-lap, 75-minute Mission Foods Laguna Seca SpeedTour.

The 14-year-old McKee left Sonoma with his first career TA2 Series podium in just his fifth outing and leapfrogged to second place in the championship, just eight points behind leader Thomas Annunziata after three of 12 rounds in 2025. Boes, meanwhile, vaulted into the national Pro-Am Challenge points lead with his first class victory of the season after a pair of runner-up finishes in the opening two rounds, and also scored his second career and first Western Championship win of the season, becoming the first driver in Trans Am history to win both in the same race.

McKee and Boes won’t be the only drivers wielding M1 Racecars equipment this weekend that hoisted hardware last Saturday at Sonoma. Jared Odrick and Brody Goble both secured runner-up finishes, Odrick in Pro-Am Challenge and Goble in the Western Championship. Two other entries will bring to six the number of M1 Racecars in the 37-car field for Saturday’s race – national series veteran Mike Skeen, a former winner at Laguna Seca, and Western Championship regular Tim Carroll.

McKee and his No. 28 Spire Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro earned the breakthrough podium after opening the season in February with finishes of seventh at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway and fifth in March at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. The Chevrolet development driver made his TA2 Series debut at Virginia International Raceway in Alton last October, finishing an impressive fourth, just .7 of a second off the podium. He signed a development agreement with Spire Motorsports earlier this year and is also contesting a part-time schedule on the CARS Tour, where he opened the season with a runner-up finish in the Pro Late Model race March 1 at New River All-American Speedway in Jacksonville, North Carolina, then followed it up with a victory April 12 at Cordele (Ga.) Motor Speedway. McKee became the CARS Tour’s youngest winner in the Pro Late Model division as a 12-year-old in 2023.

Boes, driver of the No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro, opened the season with a pair of runner-up finishes in Pro-Am at Sebring and Road Atlanta. He won the 2024 Pro-Am title behind seven class victories. The driver from Ooltewah, Tennessee, is also contesting the Western Championship this season, and he started that campaign with a third-place finish in the opening race March 16 at Buttonwillow (Calif.) Raceway in M1 Racecars equipment. Boes scored his first career Western Championship victory last July at Portland (Ore.) International Raceway. He also scored a fourth-place finish in his No. 27 TeamSLR entry with co-driver Greg Biffle in the non-points SpeedTour All-Star Race last July at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut. A year ago this weekend, Boes qualified on the pole for the first race of a scheduled Western Championship doubleheader at Laguna Seca. But that race was called off due to torrential rains that hit the track during the pace laps. Boes returned to start second in the lone race that was run the following day and contended for the lead before an electrical gremlin ended his day in the closing laps.

The 38-year-old Skeen, driver of the No. 2 Guthrie’s Garage Chevrolet Camaro, looks to rebound from an early race incident that ended his bid last weekend at Sonoma. The 2020 TA2 Series champion from Durham, North Carolina, opened the season with TeamSLR at Sebring behind the wheel of the No. 48 Cube 3 Architecture/Guthrie’s Garage/Franklin Road Apparel/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro and drove it to a runner-up finish after qualifying on the pole. He moved to the Guthrie’s Garage Camaro for round two at Road Atlanta, where he’s slated to finish the season. He had back-to-back stellar TA2 Series runs at Laguna Seca in 2021 and 2022, qualifying on the pole both years and finishing second in 2021 and winning in 2022.

Odrick, the 37-year-old from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who played seven seasons with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins and Jacksonville Jaguars from 2010 through 2016, joined the M1 Racecars brigade when he took delivery of his new chassis after the Sebring season opener and put it right to work in the March 8-9 SCCA Hoosier Super Tour weekend doubleheader at Road Atlanta, scoring GT2-class victories from the pole in both races. The second-year TA2 Pro-Am Challenge-class competitor then drove his No. 00 Black Underwear Chevrolet Camaro to a fourth-place finish on the Road Atlanta circuit before finishing second to Boes at Sonoma. He arrives at Laguna Seca third in the Pro-Am standings.

Goble, the 2023 Western Championship title winner from Surrey, British Columbia, returned to the series this season and promptly scored a victory in the opening event at Buttonwillow in his No. 69 Brown Brothers Ford Lincoln Mustang. His second-place finish to Boes at Sonoma kept him atop the Western Challenge standings with Boes seven points behind in second. Goble qualified on the pole and finished second in his most recent visit to Laguna Seca during his 2023 championship season. Fellow M1 Racecars Western Championship competitor Carroll, driver of the No. 46 CRDMFG.com Chevrolet Camaro, qualified fourth and finished sixth in the Western Championship race last year at Laguna Seca.

This weekend’s Mission Foods Laguna Seca SpeedTour kicks off with a lone TA2 practice session at 10 a.m. PDT Friday, followed by qualifying at 2:25 p.m. Race time is 12:05 p.m. Saturday with live video streaming coverage provided by new series broadcast partner Speed Sport 1, as well as the Trans Am channel on YouTube.

Riding along with TeamSLR drivers and their M1 Racecars once again this season is Nashville, Tennessee-based Franklin Road Apparel Company, which has been a longtime team supporter and serves as associate partner on all TeamSLR entries. Also continuing its support of the overall TeamSLR effort is Cube 3 Architecture.

Tristan McKee, Driver, No. 28 Spire Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

You got a good taste of Laguna Seca prior to last weekend’s Sonoma race. What were your initial impressions?

“I got to turn quite a few laps around there a few weeks ago, but not in a TA2 car. It’s got a lot of elevation, so it was a lot of fun, probably one of my new favorite tracks. We’ll see how it is in the TA2 Camaro, but it should be a lot of fun with all the elevation and the Corkscrew, which makes it interesting. People said it’s a big-time drop, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting. It was still pretty big, like the elevation wasn’t as much as I was expecting, but that was still a lot, too. Overall, it was a really cool experience getting to go down the Corkscrew, especially for the first time. We’ll see how it goes when we get back there this weekend.”

How would you compare Laguna Seca to Sonoma, now that you’ve had a chance to spend a good bit of time at both tracks?

“It’s pretty fast, I feel like. There are a lot of pretty high-speed sections and not a lot of super low-speed stuff, except for the last two turns, I would say. So it’s going to be fast, a lot of elevation and, like I said, it should be interesting in the TA2 car because there’s so much elevation. It’s going to take a lot of different driving techniques compared to some other tracks. Compared to Sonoma, they’re similar when it comes to elevation changes and the feel that comes with that. It seems like those California tracks, with the elevation, are really cool tracks. I’m looking forward to seeing which one is more fun in the TA2 because I haven’t driven in Laguna in the TA2, so that’ll be a lot of fun. It should be a good time.”

What do you think about the chance to race back-to-back Trans Am weekends from the standpoint of accelerating your education in the TA2 cars?

“Yeah, I’m kind of warmed up already, so it should be good when we get back there to Laguna this weekend. We only have 25 minutes of practice, which is not a lot, and then we go qualifying. So we’re going to have to get to it and grind all the way through practice and make sure we get a good qualifying spot. I feel good about having learned the track, so hopefully everything else will go well.”

Barry Boes, Driver, No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

Your thoughts about heading to Laguna Seca this weekend, coming off your record-breaking double-win weekend at Sonoma in both the national Pro-Am Challenge class and the TA2 Western Championship?

“We have some unfinished business to take care of as far as Laguna Seca is concerned. I qualified on the Western Championship pole there last year for the Saturday race and I was thinking it was going to be the best race ever. We came to the end of the pace laps and the rain was just coming down harder and harder and they ended up calling off the race before we took the green. So we had to requalify for the Sunday race, which I ended up second, and everything was great for the first three-quarters of the race before a sensor failed and shut down the car. This year, we’re focused on making good on all of what went on last year.”

Do you feel you’ve got momentum in your favor that will carry over from your solid weekend at Sonoma into this weekend?

“I’m definitely feeling good. We were on a mission last weekend and everything fell into place. It’ll be a relatively short weekend at Laguna – no test sessions, just 25 minutes of practice, 15 minutes of qualifying, and then we go racing. On a typical weekend, I’m often higher up in the ranks early on, so that might pay dividends this weekend, kind of leveling the playing field. I’ve just got to be fast and keep it clean. We’ve only got a limited number of laps on the track before we go racing, so I’ve got to make the car work and it’s got to make me work. It was a newly resurfaced track at Sonoma, and a newly resurfaced track at Laguna, so hopefully the setup’s going to be applicable since they’re fairly similar. We know what gearing we need and we should just be able to get out there and get down to business, just do what TeamSLR does.”

How would you compare what it takes to get around the Sonoma and Laguna Seca layouts?

“I would say what they call the carousel at both tracks – turn six at Sonoma and turn nine at Laguna – carry over a little bit. They’re both downhill, sweeping carousels. But most of the rest of the tracks work differently. Laguna Seca’s got all sorts of what I call gravity cavities, more than any other track I’ve ever been around. When you come down into one of those corners, there’s a lot of banking and maybe a very deep well all the way to the apex. And Laguna’s got the Corkscrew. It’s a signature part of the track. It’s really a rhythm thing where the car falls down the hill and it looks like it would destroy the car off on the inside because you’re basically falling down it. The first time you go through it, I mean, your stomach ends up in your mouth. But there’s a technique to get through it, and once you’ve done it a few times and get it down, it’s just another part of the lap.”

-TeamSLR-