Challenging Day at Road America for TeamSLR

Overview

Date: June 29, 2024

Event: Road America SpeedTour (Round 8 of 12)

Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli

Division: Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series

Location: Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin

Layout: 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course

Format: 25 laps or 75 minutes

Weather: Sunny, low-80s

Winner: Rafa Matos of Nitro Motorsports

TeamSLR:

* Barry Boes – Started 14^th, Finished 15^th (Running, completed 25/25 laps)

* Mike Skeen – Started 3^rd, Finished 25^th (Electrical, completed 22/25 laps)

* Thomas Ellis – Started 13^th, Finished 29^th (Incident completed 7/25 laps)

Noteworthy:

* Austin Green of Peterson Racing was the highest-finishing M1 Racecars competitor, placing seventh from the sixth starting spot. He returned to TA2 Series competition last week at the Mid-Ohio Sports Course in Lexington for the first time since this year’s season-opener at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway and promptly qualified his No. 89 Ford Mustang on the pole.

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

“We qualified a little further back than we would’ve liked, but it wasn’t a bad qualifying spot. At the start of the race, I lost a couple of positions just protecting the car, but I started to make up those positions over time and started moving my way up. After a restart, I got a bunch of people back and got into the Pro-Am lead, and then sprung a leak in a water line and I ended up dropping back. So my last two laps were about hoping the car would make it to the finish and I lost about seven or eight spots.”

Mike Skeen, Driver No. 17 Cube 3 Architecture/Franklin Road Apparel/SLR-M1 Racecars Ford Mustang:

“It was a frustrating day, for sure. The car was handling great and we could kill everybody through the Carousel and a bunch of other spots, but just couldn’t quite move forward. I was fighting for a decent finishing spot and for some reason lost power just coasting through the corner. We’ll dig into it and move on and hopefully I’ll get to come back and do some more. I just want to thank Cube 3 Architecture and Ken Thwaits and Franklin Road Apparel for helping to make this possible.”

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

“That wasn’t the ending we were looking for after showing top-10 speed all through testing and practice. This was my first race back in TA2 since Sebring and Road Atlanta and I was really looking forward to a good performance after putting in a lot of preparation. And TeamSLR, as always, gave me a good racecar. I had to dodge an incident in front of me to avoid getting wrecked and just wasn’t able to continue from there. It’s a shame. But we’ll keep digging and hope next time we get the results we know we’re capable of.”

Next Up

The 2024 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series takes an eight-week hiatus before returning to action Aug. 24 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International for the first of back-to-back race weekends. The three-day Mission Foods Watkins Glen SpeedTour weekend kicks off with a pair of TA2 test sessions Thursday, Aug. 22. Official TA2 practice is slated for Friday, Aug. 23, followed by qualifying. The TA2 race around the 3.45-mile, 11-turn road course will take place Saturday, Aug. 24. All track session times will be announced at a later date. Series partner MAVTV will provide live television coverage augmented via live video stream on the Trans Am channel on YouTube.

-TeamSLR-