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Helio Meza Tops Alon Day in Closest Finish in Trans Am History; Lanie Buice Delivers Her First Career TA2 National Series Podium
Overview
Date: Sept. 5, 2026
Event: Labour Day Weekend Sprints (Round 10 of 12)
Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli
Division: CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series
Location: Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario
Layout: 2.459-mile, 10-turn road course
Format: 410 laps or 75 minutes
Weather: Partly cloudy, low-70s
Winner: Helio Meza of TeamSLR
TeamSLR:
● Helio Meza – Started 1st, Finished 1st (Running, completed 41/41 laps)
● Alon Day – Started 2nd, Finished 2nd (Running, completed 41/41 laps)
● Lanie Buice – Started 3rd, Finished 3rd (Running, completed 41/41 laps)
M1 Racecars:
● Jace Denmark – Started 9th, Finished 7th (Running, completed 40/41 laps)
● Jared Odrick – Started 17th, Finished 28th (Accident, completed 18/41 laps)
Noteworthy:
● Meza, the 18-year-old from Houston, won for the seventh time in 10 CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series races this season and for the eighth time in 11 career starts, dating back to last year’s season finale at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas.
● Meza earned the pole position Friday for the fourth time this season to lead a 1-2-3 TeamSLR qualifying effort, with Day second and Buice a TA2 career-high third. The three drivers held their relative position for all 41 laps of Saturday’s race. Meza crossed the finish line by a .025-of-a-second margin ahead of Day to record the closest finish in the 61-year history of the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli.
● Day, the 34-year-old from Ashdod, Israel, entered the weekend with a 41-point lead over Meza in the driver standings. His runner-up finish was his sixth in 10 races and ninth consecutive podium, a streak that includes victories May 23 at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, and June 28 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. His podium streak began with a third-place finish in the March 14 race at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
● Today’s first career TA2 podium for Buice, the 19-year-old from Jackson, Georgia, marked her sixth top-10 finish of the season and her fifth in a row.
● Meza’s victory Saturday was the 17th in a row for TeamSLR, dating back to Tristan McKee’s June 2025 triumph at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington en route to last year’s TA2 championship.
● Denmark, the 23-year-old from Phoenix and driver of the No. 68 Troy Benner Autosport M1 Racecars entry, was the highest finisher – seventh – among the two other M1 Racecars competitors in the field.
● Odrick, the 2025 TA2 Series Pro-Am Challenge champion who entered the weekend second in the class standings, qualified on the Pro-Am pole in his No. 00 Black Underwear/Troy Benner Autosport Chevrolet Camaro M1 Racecars chassis but saw his day end prematurely after being involved in a multicar accident on lap 18.
Helio Meza, Driver, No. 28 Alessandros Racing/Chevrolet/SLR-M1 Racecars Camaro:
“I mean, not just in the race, but all weekend long, Alon’s been right there with me, trading P1 in practice and testing and qualifying. It’s tough when you have a teammate that can also see your data, because you can’t hide anything from him. But these guys at TeamSLR do an amazing job with bringing super-fast racecars. Huge congrats to Lanie on her first podium. And Alon, I really appreciate him racing me clean. I always enjoy having clean battles like that and I love winning races this way. It’s nice when you can pull a big gap on the whole field, but these close races are the ones that mean the most to me because you have to work for them the whole time. I’ve got to thank Alessandros Racing and Heraldo Media Group, Telmex, all my sponsors from Mexico. My dad couldn’t make it out – flights were too expensive – but shout out to all my family who watched back home. Chevrolet, thank you so much. And all these fans here in Canada are awesome. You could see it was super packed, and it’s cool to be racing alongside NASCAR Canada here.”
Alon Day, Driver, No. 17 JSSI/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
“You can call it annoying to finish second by such a close gap, but racing with a teammate and racing so clean, racing against Helio, what can I say? I wish it ended differently, but I’m so happy for Helio and for Lanie, and this amazing result for TeamSLR. Thanks to JSSI once again for the opportunity to race here. I think about the long run, I think about the championship, which is still in our favor, but this one is still hard.”
Lanie Buice, Driver, No. 27 Sunoco/Guthrie’s Garage/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
“This feels amazing. I’m really excited about the progress that we’ve been making this year. This is my first year road-course racing, and it’s completely different than oval racing, which I’m used to, so it’s been a blast. TeamSLR brings me a really fast racecar every week, and it’s been cool to have these teammates here, helping me and giving me all the information to be faster every single week, and just everything that we put into this. My Guthrie’s Garage/Sunoco Chevrolet was really fast today, so I can’t thank everyone enough, and I’m just excited about the progress we’ve been making.”
Next Up:
The penultimate round of the 2026 CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series campaign is two weeks hence at Virginia International Raceway in Alton. The weekend kicks off with a TA2 test session at 11:40 a.m. EDT on Saturday (Sept. 19), followed by official TA2 practice at 3:55 p.m. Qualifying is set for 9:10 a.m. Sunday (Sept. 20), with the 31-lap, 75-minute race around the 3.27-mile, 17-turn circuit race set for 1 p.m. with live streaming video provided at no charge by RacingAmerica.tv and the @GoTransAm page on YouTube.
-TeamSLR-