TeamSLR’s Carson Brown Victorious at VIR

17-Year-Old Scores First TA2 Series Win in Fourth Career Start; Transmission Issue Hinders Polesitter Tristan McKee; Solid TA2 Debuts for Lanie Buice and Naz Olkhovskyi

Overview

Date: Sept. 20, 2025

Event: VIR SpeedTour (Round 10 of 12)

Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli

Division: Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series

Location: Virginia International Raceway in Alton

Layout: 3.27-mile, 17-turn road course

Format: 31 laps or 75 minutes

Weather: Sunny, mid-80s

TA2 Winner: Carson Brown of Guthrie’s Garage/TeamSLR

TeamSLR:

• Carson Brown – Started 2^nd, Finished 1^st (Running, completed 31/31 laps)
• Naz Olkhovskyi – Started 23^rd, Finished 18^th (Running, completed 31/31 laps)
• Tristan McKee – Started 1^st, Finished 21^st (Running, completed 28/31 laps)
• Lanie Buice – Started 6^th, Finished 22^nd (Injector, completed 27/31 laps)

M1 Racecars:

• Jared Odrick – Started 8^th, Finished 5^th (Running, completed 31/31 laps)

Noteworthy:

• The 17-year-old Brown scored his first career victory and second consecutive podium finish in just his fourth career Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series start. He qualified a career-high second and took the lead from fellow teen Ben Maier six laps from the finish, pulling away to a 1.748 margin of victory over runner-up Noah Harmon. Brown’s victory came in the same No. 2 entry that veteran Mike Skeen drove to victory at Road America June 29 in a 1-2-3 finish by TeamSLR and M1 Racecars.
• The victory was TeamSLR’s fifth in a row. McKee began the streak June 22 at Mid-Ohio,followed by Skeen’s victory a week later at Road America, and McKee added back-to-back wins July 12 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International and Aug. 30 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.
• Brown qualified third and finished third in his previous TA2 Series outing July 12 at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. He opened the season with an eighth-place finish Feb. 22 at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway and scored a fourth-place finish April 26 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway.
• The 15-year-old McKee started from the pole for the second time in three races in search of his fourth victory in the last five races. He fell back to second behind Maier on the opening lap and held position until a transmission issue sent him to pit road. He resumed three laps later and took the checkered flag outside the top-five for the first time since finishing seventh in the Sebring season opener.
• McKee entered the weekend with a 176-point lead over second-place Sam Corry atop the TA2 driver standings. Corry finished fourth today.
• McKee did lay down the fastest lap of the race before his mechanical issues to win the Omalagato Fastest Lap of the Race Award for the third time this season.
• Buice, the 18-year-old Chevrolet Motorsports development driver, had a strong first career TA2 Series weekend, qualifying sixth and running in the top-five 20 laps into the 31-lap race before an injector failure sent her to pit road on two occasions.
• Olkhovskyi, the 38-year-old from Ukraine, also made his TA2 Series debut this weekend. His 18th-place overall finish put him ninth among his fellow Pro-Am Challenge-class competitors
• Odrick, who entered the weekend with a 55-point lead atop the Pro-Am standings, scored his third class victory of the season.

Carson Brown, Driver, No. 2 PayCafe/Ebb Logistics/SLR-M1 Racecars Guthrie’s Garage Entry:

“This feels really good. Just a big thank you to the whole TeamSLR crew. Our car ran really good. Got some grass on the grill when we went off there in turn four on the opening lap but came back to run a really good race. I got by the 10 care (Ben Maier) and he got back by us, and then we ended up getting together there. I just want to thank everyone for all the hard work, to Chevy, PayCafe and Ebb Logistics for all the support in making all of this happen.”

Tristan McKee, Driver, No. 28 Spire Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

“I definitely thought we had a really good car, just kind of saving behind Ben (Maier) there and just kind of managing tires and brakes. I thought we were really good on the long run, so I feel like we would have had the chance to get the win there toward the middle part of the race, but we had a transmission break. Stuff like that happens. It’s kind of been coming. We’ve had a streak of really good, clean races going for the whole year, really. So I think we’ve just got to finish out the season strong. We have two races left and still a big points lead. Thanks to M1 Racecars and TeamSLR, they brought really fast Chevys. Obviously, we had really great speed with all of our cars. Also thanks to Spire, Gainbridge, HendrickCars.com, Josh Wise, Scott Speed and Lorin Ranier at Chevrolet for prepping me for this race. We were really fast, I’ve worked on a lot of things with the team with Scott (Lagasse) and Scotty (Lagasse Jr.). Overall, it was a good weekend. Just wish we could have finished out a little bit better.”

Lanie Buice, Driver, No. 8 Chevrolet/Franklin Road/Cube 3/SLR-M1 Racecars Camaro:

“The whole experience throughout the weekend with Team SLR has been incredible for me. I’m just super thankful for the opportunity from TeamSLR, Chevrolet, all the preparation that Josh Wise, Scott Speed, and Lorin Ranier and everybody that’s just given me this opportunity to be out here today and get my first road-course race here in the TA2 series. I’ve learned a ton over the weekend, Scott (Lagasse Jr.) and all TeamSLR guys have been incredible, and just the fact that they’ve been so invested into making me a better driver this weekend, I feel like I’ve made so much progress and I’m ready to go into the next one. It’s unfortunate that we had an electronic malfunction. It’s just part of it, unfortunately. It happens sometimes, and you never know when those days are going to hit. So we were running fifth before the mechanical failure and I was really proud of the speed that we were able to show and I’m just excited to continue to find speed everywhere and fine tune and just become a better driver. So unfortunate that we didn’t get the result, I was told not to focus on the result. We came here with a job today and that was to learn as much as we can and try to execute every part of the weekend, so I really believe that’s what we did.”

Naz Olkhovskyi, Driver, No. 48 #StandForUkraine/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

“I think it was great to get so much support from the team, building my confidence before the race, during practice and qualifying, and then in the race. I started to slowly building up speed and I actually went faster in the race than I did in qualifying, just because I was able to drive behind people and see what they are doing. That helped a lot. And then by the end of the race, I was so confident, I started passing cars, which is new for me. Unfortunately, on the last lap, I was too greedy and took too much curb and spun. But I learned something – that these cars don’t like curbs. I didn’t practice curbs during practice. The support was unbelievable. I’m living my dream, so I can’t wait for the next one.”

Next Up

The penultimate round on the 12-event on the 2025 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series calendar takes TeamSLR and its fellow competitors for the first time to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, for the Barber SpeedTour Oct. 17-19. The weekend begins Friday (Oct. 17) with the first of two official TA2 practice sessions at 12:20 p.m. CDT. The second practice session is set for 8:55 a.m. Saturday (Oct. 18), followed by qualifying at 1:25 p.m. The 42-lap, 75-minute race is set for 1:50 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 19) with live video provided by series partner Speed Sport 1, augmented by simulcast coverage on the Trans Am channel on YouTube.

-TeamSLR-