Points Leaders Tristan McKee, Barry Boes Welcome Back Carson Brown, Look To Keep Momentum Going Along with Fellow M1 Racecars Competitor Jared Odrick
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (July 10, 2025) – Back-to-back wins the last two weekends in June have the TeamSLR (Scott Lagasse Racing) and M1 Racecars camp anxious to pick up where it left off as the Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series pays its annual visit to New York’s Finger Lakes region for Saturday’s Watkins Glen SpeedTour. The three-car TeamSLR entry will be headed by fulltime drivers Tristan McKee and Barry Boes, who will be joined for the third time this season by Carson Brown. Troy Benner Autosport’s Jared Odrick rounds out the M1 Racecars lineup.
The 14-year-old McKee drove to his highly anticipated first career TA2 Series victory in just his eighth career start June 22 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington. The following weekend, in the June 29 race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, TeamSLR and M1 Racecars swept the podium with veteran Mike Skeen on the top step after a dominating pole-to-checkered-flag effort in the No. 2 Visit Palatka/Guthrie’s Garage/SLR-M1 Racecars entry, leading all 22 laps of the race. McKee finished in the runner-up position, his fifth consecutive podium finish, while 19-year-old Corey Day, the Hendrick Motorsports driver making just his fourth career TA2 start, rounded out the top-three.
The Mid-Ohio and Road America wins were the first for M1 Racecars since three-time champion Rafa Matos scored 2023 wins at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway and Mid-Ohio, and the first for TeamSLR since Connor Mosack drove to consecutive Watkins Glen victories in 2021 and 2022.
Meanwhile, the Pro-Am Challenge podium at Road America last month gave TeamSLR and M1 Racecars more cause for celebration as both of its entries in the class finished in the top two positions. Boes scored his second Pro-Am victory of the season while Odrick finished in the runner-up spot.
Both McKee and the 54-year-old Boes arrive at the iconic Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International circuit leading their respective championships through seven of 12 events on the schedule. McKee, driver of the No. 28 Spire/Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro, holds a 34-point advantage over second-place Thomas Annunziata in the TA2 national series race. Boes, driver of the No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro, opened up a nine-point lead over second-place Odrick in the Pro-Am Challenge standings.
At Mid-Ohio last month, McKee led all 42 race laps from his second starting position. The Chevrolet Motorsports development driver from Kannapolis, North Carolina, crossed the finish line 2.088 seconds ahead of Matos to become the second-youngest driver to win a Trans Am race at 14 years, 10 months and 19 days. Only Brent Crews, who won the June 2022 race at Road America at the age of 14 years, three months and four days, was younger.
While McKee will be looking to build upon his championship points lead this weekend, he’ll also be using Saturday’s 30-lap, 75-minute race around the 3.4-mile, 11-turn circuit as a tune-up for his ARCA Menards Series debut Aug. 8 at The Glen. His five-race string of podium finishes began with his first career TA2 podium in his fifth career start April 26 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, followed by back-to-back third-place finishes May 3 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca near Monterey, California, and May 24 at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut. He opened the season with a seventh-place finish Feb. 22 at Sebring, followed by a fifth-place result March 23 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Brown, the 16-year-old from New London, North Carolina, and driver of the No. 8 PayCafe/Ebb Logistics/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro, posted solid performances in his first two career TA2 Series starts. The versatile young driver opened the season with an eighth-place finish from the 12th starting position at Sebring, then followed it up with a fourth-place finish from the sixth starting position at Sonoma. In March, the primarily dirt and asphalt short-oval specialist finished sixth in his ARCA Menards Series East debut at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida. Since his last TA2 Series outing at Sonoma, Brown competed in the DIRTcar Summer Nationals tour. He also drove to a Super Late Model victory at Madison (Wis.) International Speedway. Brown will celebrate his 17th birthday Sunday.
Boes, the defending TA2 Pro-Am Challenge-class champion from Ooltewah, Tennessee, looks to better his 10th-place overall finish at Watkins Glen last August, his best in four appearances at the track. That overall top-10 topped all Pro-Am competitors and marked his fifth of seven class victories in 12 events in 2024.
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, has logged four top-two Pro-Am finishes in the last five events, including victories at Laguna Seca and Mid-Ohio behind the wheel of his No. 00 Black Underwear/CoolBoxx/M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro.
Watkins Glen SpeedTour weekend kicks off Friday with a pair of TA2 test sessions at 11 a.m. and 2:10 p.m. EDT, followed by official TA2 practice at 5:05 p.m. TA2 qualifying is set for 8 a.m. Saturday, and the day concludes with the TA2 race at 1:05 p.m. Series broadcast partner Speed Sport 1 will provide 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.
Safe to say, since the back-to-back landmark weekends for you and the team at Mid-Ohio and Road America, that you’ve been counting the days until you’re back in your M1 Racecars TA2 car at Watkins Glen this weekend?
“Oh, yeah, I’m excited. I think Watkins Glen is a lot of fun. It’s more like an oval-style road course, I would say. You approach it more like an oval racer, so I feel like I’ll be really strong there. I’ve done a lot of laps there on the sim, so I feel like I’m well-prepared. The track’s a ton of fun. I’ve done a lot of sim work to prepare for all the different challenges it has – a lot of elevation, and the back half of the track with the boot and all, so I’m looking forward to it. It’s definitely got the NASCAR signature to it, so it leans toward those kind of racers as far as style, and I think that was more of my style, at least at the start of the season.”
Just a week after you scored your first TA2 win at Mid-Ohio, you were in the middle of a TeamSLR and M1 Racecars sweep of the top three positions at Road America. What clicked for you and the team?
“Well, we did all the preparation work that we usually do going into it, just like all the races recently, all the sim work and stuff, so I feel like it was just preparation, and it’s gotten better. Same for this weekend at Watkins Glen, I think we’ll be really strong rolling off the trailer like we’ve been in the past few races. I definitely struggled a little bit at Road America, even all the way up to the race. It was definitely one of the harder tracks for me and I’m not really sure why. I was definitely well-prepared once I got there, it just took me a little bit to really get used to it. And once I got to follow some other cars around the track, I really picked it up pretty quickly. I’m just looking to keep building off the strong runs we’ve been having. We won at Mid-Ohio, finished second at Road America, had some good runs before that, as well, so I’m looking to keep the momentum going and keep heading in the right direction.”
You’ll be back at Watkins Glen the second weekend in August to make your ARCA Menards Series debut. Does that make it all the more exciting to try and log quality laps there this weekend?
“I’ll have a lot of laps there for when I go back to run my ARCA debut, so I’m super excited for that. I think I’ll be really well-prepared and maybe have a little bit more familiarity with how to approach the track because I will have done all the practices, qualifying and laps racing other people in the TA2 car. I don’t know exactly what to expect once I get back there in the ARCA car, but I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be a big day for my racing career.”
Overall thoughts as you head to Watkins Glen for this weekend’s eighth TA2 Series round of 2025?
“I have a lot of favorite tracks, but Watkins Glen is definitely one of my favorite tracks. It has a wide variety of challenges and requires a lot of different driving styles, which is also the case at Road America. It’s also a very high-consequence racetrack, so you’ve got to be on your game everywhere. You have to use several different driving styles, you’ve got to avoid the Armco, and I love that challenge.”
Prior to the Road America round two weekends ago, you admitted to being concerned about your ability to master one of the more difficult tracks for you in the past. But it turned out well with your second Pro-Am Challenge-class win of the year and seventh-place finish overall. How did it all fall together?
“I was so very proud of what I did there. The key is that Road America has to be driven like three different kinds of tracks. Every lap, you have to be able to drive a point-and-shoot horsepower car, a circle-track car, and a technical-track car, and being able to move between all three driving styles is not easy. It’s difficult to switch driving styles three times a lap, which is what you’ve got to do to be successful at Road America. I’ve been working really, really hard to master all of the driving styles well enough that I’m able to dynamically switch, and we can see by the fact that I did pretty well at Road America that it’s finally coming together for me.”
In addition to your class win and your fellow Pro-Am and M1 Racecars driver Jared Odrick’s runner-up finish in the class, TeamSLR and M1 Racecars posted a 1-2-3 finish overall at Road America. How did it feel to be part of such a successful weekend for the team?
“It made me feel incredibly good to be in that kind of company. You know, for us to be able to dominate in that way when we have such incredible competitors and such well-funded, well-engineered teams that we’re competing against means a lot.”
You’re back with TeamSLR for the third time this season and the first since April 26 at Sonoma. Thoughts on tackling Watkins Glen with the team this weekend?
“I’m really looking forward to it. It’s been a while since I’ve been in the TA2 car as we’ve had a very busy spring and summer racing a lot of short-track stuff. That’s been a lot of fun, but I’m definitely looking forward to getting back with TeamSLR and getting back after it. I feel like we’ll have a really good car this weekend. It’s been a while, so I might be a little rusty at the start, but we’ll get plenty of track time and I think we should have a good weekend. Watkins Glen is a track that’s on the NASCAR schedule and a road course that everybody looks up to. I have high hopes and hopefully we can get it done with another good finish. I’ve driven it on the sim and I’ve looked at some video, everything I can do to prepare. It looks interesting on the sim. I felt like there are a few corners down in the boot where the entry-to-exit value is very interesting. I feel like there are a lot of corners that are very oval-like, and some interesting braking zones. I’m sure things will be a lot different in person, in real life, than the simulator, but hopefully the preparation has definitely gotten me close.”
What have you been doing since we last saw you at Sonoma?
“The main thing was the DIRTcar Summer Nationals, which is basically a Super Late Model event with 30 races in 32 days, all at different tracks. I also ran a couple of races in our asphalt Super Late Model. I won in that at Madison International Speedway in Wisconsin. That was a $15,000-to-win race, so that was very cool. I also set a track record, won a couple poles, and had a decent amount of top-10s in the dirt Late Model during the Summer Nationals. It’s been pretty grueling but it’s a lot of fun. I will say I’ve been keeping my eye on TeamSLR the whole time, and it was pretty crazy watching Tristan (McKee) win at Mid-Ohio, and then watching them finish 1-2-3 at Road America. They had a lot of speed and just looked really good and solid with really no issues, they kind of just set sail. It was cool to watch, and hopefully we can do the same at Watkins Glen. It definitely gives me more confidence knowing that the team’s running so well. It’s a good environment and everybody’s confident, and I feel like confidence is a really big thing.”
Your first two outings with TeamSLR, the first two of your career in the TA2 Series, were solid runs at Sebring and Sonoma. Why do you feel you’ve taken to the TeamSLR M1 Racecars so well?
“I feel like the dirt stuff helps me a lot, just being able to adapt. When you race dirt, you only get three laps of hot laps, and then you’re straight to qualifying. And I feel like dirt helps me a lot as far as just being able to adapt to different racecars, different conditions, different track shapes. And then racing on asphalt, I feel like that helps with patience and just understanding more how stock cars drive and how they work.”
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