14-Year-Old Tristan McKee Atop TA2 National Standings, Barry Boes Paces Pro-Am Class; Hendrick Motorsports Driver Corey Day Back for Third Outing of 2025; Jared Odrick, Second in Pro-Am, Adds Punch to M1 Racecars Lineup
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (June 18, 2025) – The midpoint of the 2025 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series season arrives this weekend, appropriately enough, at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington with TeamSLR drivers Tristan McKee and Barry Boes looking to build on the points leads they hold in their respective classes. They’ll welcome the return of part-time teammate Corey Day, the Hendrick Motorsports driver who will make his third start of the season in Sunday’s 45-lap, 75-minute race around the scenic 2.258-mile, 13-turn road circuit situated between Columbus and Cleveland.
McKee, the 14-year-old TA2 Series rookie from Kannapolis, North Carolina, enters the weekend with a six-point advantage over recently turned 20-year-old Thomas Annunziata atop the national series driver championship through five of 12 events on the calendar. The driver of the No. 28 Spire/Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro, who’s part of the Chevrolet Motorsports driver development program, is riding a streak of three consecutive podium finishes. His first career TA2 podium came 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 (Fla.) International Raceway, followed by a fifth-place result March 23 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Boes, the 54-year-old defending TA2 Pro-Am Challenge-class champion from Ooltewah, Tennessee, and driver of the No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro, has picked up where he left off in 2024. He’s built a 26-point lead atop the Pro-Am standings over fellow M1 Racecars driver Jared Odrick after four class podiums in the first five events, including a victory from the pole at Sonoma, and back-to-back runner-up finishes at Sebring and Road Atlanta.
While the TA2 Series was off the past three weekends since the traditional Memorial Day weekend stop at Lime Rock, McKee has certainly kept busy. He drove to a pair of fourth-place CARS Tour Late Model Stock-class finishes June 2 at Langley Speedway in Kannapolis and last Saturday at Dominion Raceway in Woodford, Virginia. He also got his first taste of the road course at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway during the 14-hour World Racing League endurance race on June 8. He co-drove a Low Country Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro among a three-drive team that included with fellow Team Chevy competitor and recent TeamSLR part-timer Carson Kvapil.
A year ago this weekend, Boes drove his TeamSLR M1 Racecars entry to his second-best overall finish since joining the TA2 Series in 2019. From his ninth starting position, he took the checkered flag sixth, best since his third-place run on the streets of Detroit in June 2023.
In addition to Boes’ milestone run, last year’s Mid-Ohio race was a significant one for the M1 Racecars contingent. Peterson Racing’s Austin Green qualified his M1 chassis on the pole. His race-day effort was cut short, however, thanks to an early race incident.
Meanwhile, Day returns to the No. 17 HendrickCars.com/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro for the first time this weekend since his May 3 outing at Sonoma, where he laid down an impressive qualifying effort of fourth in just his second-ever TA2 Series race. In addition to that bit of momentum, he’s coming off a victory in last Saturday’s World of Outlaws Sprint Car feature at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway, as well as solid runs in both the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and Xfinity Series races June 6 and 7, respectively, at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway. The 19-year-old from from Clovis, California, finished fifth in his Spire Motorsports Camaro in the Truck Series race and followed it up with an 11th-place run in his Hendrick Motorsports Camaro in the Xfinity Series race.
Rounding out the contingent of M1 Racecars is 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. He’ll be behind the wheel of the No. 00 Black Underwear/M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro for Troy Benner Autosport. Odrick 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. He and Boes competed in the May 16-17 Super Tour double-race weekend at Mid-Ohio. They qualified 1-2 among GT2-class competitors in both races with Boes on the pole for each. After rough outings in the Saturday race, they came back to finish 1-2 in the Sunday race with Odrick on the top step of the podium.
The weekend’s festivities kick off Friday with a pair of TA2 test sessions at 11:25 a.m. and 4:55 p.m. EDT. Official TA2 practice is set for 10:50 a.m. Saturday, followed by qualifying at 3:35 p.m. Sunday’s 45-lap, 75-minute race starts at 1:35 p.m. with live coverage provided by series broadcast partner Speed Sport 1, 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.
You’re leading the TA2 driver standings overall after the first five races of the season. What has enabled you to be in that position?
“Just being consistent. Our worst finish is seventh, which should have been better than that had we not gotten taken out on the last lap. But consistency, that’s the name of the game in points racing and racing for championships. We haven’t had some of the finishes that we’ve wanted, but we’ve had three podiums in the last three races – one second and two thirds. We really want those one or two more spots to be on the top step of the podium, but it’s good to rack up the podiums and rack up the consistent finishes, which gets you a lot of points. We’ve been the most consistent car so far. We might not have been the fastest every time, but we’ve definitely been the most consistent at every track.”
This weekend marks your first TA2 start at Mid-Ohio, but you’ve tested there. How would you describe that track?
“There’s definitely some elevation and stuff, toward the back half of the track after turn four, a lot of ups and downs, so I’m looking forward to that. The track’s a lot of fun, probably one of the most fun tracks that I’ve been to just because I like the elevation. You’re going over the crests of hills and losing grip and gaining grip. There’s not a lot of high-speed stuff – there really are only two fast-paced corners – so you want your car to work well in the low-speed parts of the track with good drive off the corner.”
Since we last saw you at Lime Rock on Memorial Day weekend, you’ve scored a couple of fourth-place Late Model Stock finishes on the CARS Tour, and also got your first taste of the Daytona road course in a 14-hour endurance race. Talk about that.
“It was really a good experience. We definitely got a lot of laps, probably about 150 for each of the three drivers. We finished the race, but we had to stop for a couple of hours in the middle of the race to fix something. I definitely got to know that track. It was fun, and it’s really cool driving in the night, and doing the Bus Stop and all that. It was a really good time.”
You had one of your best career weekends at Mid-Ohio a year ago, qualifying ninth and finishing sixth overall while winning in Pro-Am from the class pole. Safe to say you’re feeling good about going back?
“Mid-Ohio has been a track where I feel like I almost always do well. Sometimes I’ve gotten wrecked, other times something failed. But if and when everything works, I have a good weekend. The reason for that, I believe, is it’s the kind of track that I cut my racing teeth on, tracks like Harris Hill Raceway (in San Marcos, Texas), Motor Sports Ranch in Houston. It’s a much more technical track that really requires a lot of car and tire management and adapting to a lot of different conditions. It’s just what I grew up on, if you will, even though I was 45 when I started, so I generally do a little better there. Last year, I went out there for a practice session and (three-time TA2 champion) Rafa Matos came out right behind me and I thought, great, when he passes me I’ll follow him. He never passed me, and every lap I was a tenth faster, a tenth faster, a tenth faster. The track just suits me.”
What is it about the track that suits you so well?
“Don’t get me wrong, Mid-Ohio is a hard, hard track. It’s got a lot of different things to blend together and I just like that, it’s different and it’s fun for me. It’s all about managing the car in changing conditions all the time. It’s a longer track and it does have some hard-to-do sections, and it’s very challenging to manage the car and get everything out of it. There are a couple of things I need to do better where some of the pros are better than me. But it’s just a fun track. Passing is hard, so you’ve got to qualify really well.”
You’re back for your third race with TeamSLR after outings at Sebring and Sonoma where you showed speed and your ability to learn the finer points of road-course racing. Your overall thoughts as you head to Mid-Ohio?
“I’ve never been there – I’ve done it on iRacing, but that’s about all the experience I’ve got so far. But that’s alright because I kind of like going to places completely green. Sometimes you work on the sim learning your marks around the track, but it seems like nine times out of 10 it’s going to be different in real life. That’s gotten me into trouble a couple of times just thinking that it’s going to be identical to the sim, and then it takes me half a day to figure out my new marks after I’ve abandoned what I learned on the sim. But Mid-Ohio seems like a pretty cool place, and our (TeamSLR) cars have been fast all year, so I’m excited to get back with the team.”
What are key things you noticed about the track in your iRacing experience?
“For starters, turn one looks pretty challenging. It’s got a pretty unorthodox shape to it, so that’s going to be difficult to get right every single lap of the race, for sure. But I’m really excited to be challenged in that sense. I feel like that track this weekend is going to make me better.”
You qualified fourth at Sonoma in April in just your second-ever TA2 race. Do you feel that will be a good springboard for this weekend?
“I feel like I’m getting the TA2 car figured out pretty well, knowing the tendencies of it and just the feel for everything and what it does well. I think that’s a plus, and that’s something that I’ll take into this weekend. It’ll be another new track for me, and it looks like it acts differently than the first two tracks I raced at, so we’ll see how it goes. I feel like we definitely have some momentum going into this one, but at the same time it’s a new track, and it’s a very different style of track, too.”
-TeamSLR-