.png?width=251&height=67&name=SLR%20website%20logo%20(M1%20vert).png)
Teen Rookie Tristan McKee Looks To Extend Points Lead as Trans Am Community Mourns Loss of Driver Barry Boes
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (Aug. 25, 2025) – It is with heavy hearts that TeamSLR (Scott Lagasse Racing) and the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli community arrive at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, for Saturday’s CTMP SpeedTour event after second-year TeamSLR driver and defending Pro-Am Challenge-class champion Barry Boes was involved in a fatal aviation incident Aug. 18.
The 54-year-old Boes had been a fixture in the Trans Am paddock since 2019, and made major strides in his race craft since joining TeamSLR at the outset of 2024, winning his class in seven of last year’s 12 events en route to the Pro-Am Challenge title, then leading the class through the first eight rounds this season.
“Barry will surely be missed in so many ways,” said TeamSLR and constructor M1 Racecars co-owner Scott Lagasse Jr. “His smile and the pure love he had for Trans Am racing was infectious. He came into the sport a little later in life after having been a world-class competitor in water sports. But he applied an incredible work ethic in trying to make himself the best racecar driver possible, and the results were really beginning to show these last two seasons. More than anything, he was a genuine friend. His presence made our sport better, and his absence will be felt for a long time. On behalf of our partners – Chevrolet, Spire, Gainbridge, Franklin Road, Cube 3, and HendrickCars.com among them – our thoughts and prayers continue for the many friends, family members and fans who knew and loved Barry.”
TeamSLR’s lone entry for this weekend’s CTMP SpeedTour, the No. 28 Spire/Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro of newly turned 15-year-old Tristan McKee, will carry a special decal in tribute to the memory of Boes, bearing the tagline, “Always A Champion.” Decals will be made available to the entire Trans Am paddock.
Saturday’s 41-lap, 75-minute race around the 2.459-mile circuit located an hour north and east of Toronto will feature a 25-car field in which the Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series competitors will be joined for the first time this season by the Trans Am Series’ TA, XGT, SGT and GT classes.
A TA2 Series rookie with just 10 races under his belt, McKee arrives in Canada having won two of the last three events – June 22 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, and July 12 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. In between, he brought home a runner-up finish June 29 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, where he was part of a 1-2-3 TeamSLR finish led by the race-winning veteran Mike Skeen and third-place-finishing Corey Day, a fellow teen rookie who is part of the Hendrick Motorsports stable of drivers.
Riding a streak of six consecutive podium finishes, McKee leads the TA2 driver championship by an 82-point margin over second-place Thomas Annunziata, who is not entered in this weekend’s event. Next-closest in the standings is third-place Sam Corry, who is 167 points back. McKee returned to Watkins Glen to make his ARCA Menards Series debut Aug. 8, just five days after turning 15, and emerged with the victory after qualifying fourth.
Joining McKee in representing the M1 Racecars contingent once again this weekend is Jared 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. The second-year Pro-Am Challenge competitor has logged four top-two Pro-Am finishes in the last six events, including victories May 3 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and at Mid-Ohio behind the wheel of his No. 00 Black Underwear/CoolBoxx/M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro. He’s currently shown 42-points behind Boes atop the Pro-Am standings with four events remaining. Odrick finished second in this race a year ago.
CTMP SpeedTour weekend kicks off Thursday with three test sessions set for 10 a.m., noon and 2:40 p.m. EDT. Friday begins with official practice at 11:40 a.m., followed by qualifying at 3:45 p.m. Race time Saturday is 2:15 p.m. with series broadcast partner Speed Sport 1 providing live TV coverage, augmented by a live stream on 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, as well as Kallberg Racing, and Guthrie’s Garage.
Tristan McKee, Driver, No. 28 Spire Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
You’re heading into the home stretch of your rookie TA2 season having shown consistency throughout? How has your performance matched up with your expectations at the beginning of the year?
“Coming into it, it was just going to be a learning experience. This road-course stuff was a new discipline for me. I’m from the oval world, that’s what I’d done my whole racing career, so this was a different thing for me to try to learn. It’s important to know how to do because in the top ranks of NASCAR – Trucks, Xfinity and Cup – there are a lot of road-course races. It’s important to be really good at it because it can get you into the playoffs and get you through the playoffs. I’m having a lot of fun doing it while working with all the TeamSLR guys. I’ve learned a ton from Scotty (Scott Lagasse Jr.) and Scott Sr. And Scott Speed and Josh Wise (from Chevrolet Motorsports) have taught me so much about all the road-course stuff, and I’ve gotten a lot better at it. I’ve been learning a lot.”
Could you possibly have envisioned being in position to win a championship your first year?
“Definitely coming into the year, we knew that at my age, if I was able to be the champion at the end of the year, I’d be the youngest Trans Am champion ever, so that was the ultimate end goal. I definitely started off a little slower, had a top-10 and a top-five finish, and then we’ve been kind of picking it up after that, building momentum, and I’ve just been learning a lot. I went to Road America, had a good run there after Mid-Ohio, where we were able to get the win. So it’s just been all about learning, taking it in like a sponge and just being able to learn from anyone that was around me.”
Is there a point in the season where everything finally just clicked for you?
“Yeah, definitely. I’ve been learning the whole time, a lot, every time we’re at the track. Even though I got the win before Road America, that weekend is where it just kind of clicked a little bit. I really struggled through practice and in qualifying. Even at the beginning of the race, I was pretty far off. I didn’t qualify great (fifth). But I kind of just got behind my teammate Mike Skeen. He’s been teaching me a lot, helps me a lot throughout practice at the races he’s been at. He’s a really, really great driver, and we’ve learned a lot through his video and his data. But I thought, that whole weekend at Road America, is where it just kind of clicked. We had a really, really good weekend. He was fastest in every single session. I felt like I actually learned more at Road America than anywhere. And then we went to Watkins Glen after that and had a similar weekend to Mid-Ohio.”
Based on your preparation for this weekend, what is your outlook at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park?
“I’ve been doing all the sim work I can. I haven’t been there in real life, yet, but I’ve been doing all the sim work on iRacing and all that. It seems like a super fun track. It seems like more of my style, flowy with a lot of elevation, kind of like Mid-Ohio and places like that, not a ton of huge braking zones, just kind of flowy and a rhythm track. I’m definitely looking forward to it.”
With four races remaining, you’ve got a pretty healthy lead in the championship. Do you go into safe mode from here on out? What is your approach to the races beginning with this weekend?
“This weekend, it begins with what we feel in practice, how the car is handling after some rule changes that were made since Watkins Glen. We definitely can’t afford to get into any wrecks or anything like that, so we’re definitely going to play it a little safer. We’ve stayed pretty safe all year, haven’t really gotten into any collisions, knock on wood. So I think it’s definitely just kind of a matter of survival, a little bit. It’ll be important to qualify well. Then I feel like we’ll definitely need to survive some and still try to extend our points lead.”
The team arrives at CTMP with heavy hearts after losing Barry Boes in a fatal plane crash last week. Your thoughts on that, and can you describe the working relationship between the two of you?
“Yeah, I mean, it’s so sad. He was a really good guy, and I just am keeping his family and friends in my thoughts and prayers. We worked pretty closely together, did some sim stuff and worked with him a lot at the racetrack, just helping him out with data and video, and he taught me quite a few things, especially going to new tracks. I was able to look at some of his video from previous years, and I mean he was just a really great guy, one of the nicest guys in the paddock. So it’s just terrible to not have him around anymore.”
-TeamSLR-