Story By: LAZ DENES / SILVER HARE RACING – HIGH POINT, NC – The first half of the 2024 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series comes to a close with the series’ first-ever visit to Western Pennsylvania for Sunday’s Pitt Race SpeedTour at the Pittsburgh International Race Complex. Silver Hare Racing drivers Connor Mosack and Jake Drew like what they’ve seen of the place while studying on-board video laps around the picturesque 2.75-mile, 19-turn road course.
The team arrives at the facility known as Pitt Race on the heels of its pair of top-six finishes in the most recent TA2 round two weekends ago at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut. Drew posted a fifth-place finish in the No. 77 Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro and teammate Boris Said Jr. came home a TA2 career-best sixth in the No. 75 HendrickCars.com/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro in the May 25 Memorial Day Classic at Lime Rock.
Said will forego this weekend’s event at Pitt Race as he’ll be at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway to support his dad, longtime NASCAR and sportscar racer Boris Said, for the final race of his NASCAR career. The elder Said will be behind the wheel of the No. 17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series event for his 150th and final outing across NASCAR’s top three touring series – Cup, Xfinity and Trucks – dating back to 1995. His racecar will carry a blue-and-white paint scheme identical to his 20-year-old son’s Silver Hare Racing Camaro.
The 25-year-old Mosack, will be behind the wheel of the No. 57 Silver Hare Racing/PRG Chevrolet Camaro this weekend looking to bounce back from his 17th-place finish at Lime Rock, courtesy of a left-rear tire that went down on the opening lap that sent him to the pits for a replacement, dropping him two laps down. That weekend was the busiest of the season for the Charlotte, North Carolina native who’s in the midst of his third full TA2 campaign, in addition to driving a mixed bag of NASCAR Xfinity Series, Craftsman Truck Series, ARCA Menards Series and zMAX Cars Tour events for the second year in a row. It started with a Friday doubleheader on the Charlotte Motor Speedway oval, first competing in the No. 28 Pinnacle Racing Group Chevrolet Camaro, sponsored by Silver Hare Development, in the ARCA race, looking for his second consecutive victory in that series after his May 4 win at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. Brake issues foiled his bid at Charlotte. The doubleheader concluded behind the wheel of the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevy Silverado in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, which he drove to a solid eighth-place finish.
Meanwhile Drew, the 24-year-old from Fullerton, California, will be making his fifth career TA2 start this weekend after posting top-10 runs in the previous four. The veteran of a half-dozen NASCAR Truck Series events in 2023 and a 23-race slate of ARCA outings from 2021 to 2023 that featured three road-course victories in 2022 narrowly missed a podium finish in his TA2 debut March 24 at Road Atlanta, then qualified third and methodically raced his way to a second-place finish April 14 at NOLA. He finished 10th at World Wide Technology Raceway outside St. Louis on May 11 before his fifth-place run at Lime Rock two weekends ago.
Drew actually has competed at the Pitt Race facility, albeit on the .82-mile, 16-turn go-kart track adjacent to the big circuit during the August 2019 Rotax Stars and Stripes Open. With a golden ticket to that year’s Rotax Grand Finals in Italy at stake, Drew dominated his class all week, qualifying on the pole for the main event, winning two of three heat races, and the pre-final. But a fuel-pump failure just three laps into the main event brought his week to a heartbreaking end.
This weekend’s Pitt Race SpeedTour kicks off with TA2 test sessions at 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. EDT Friday, followed by Saturday’s official TA2 practice at 9 a.m. and qualifying at 1:50 p.m. Race time Sunday is 9:35 a.m. and the 36-lap, 75-minute event will be televised live by series partner MAVTV, augmented by live-streaming video on the Trans Am and SpeedTour channels on YouTube. MAVTV will air a 60-minute race show at 8 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 13.
Silver Hare Racing leverages its Trans Am effort to promote its arrive-and-drive program, where aspiring racers and even tenured professionals hone their road-racing skills on some of the most revered tracks in North America. NASCAR Cup Series drivers Daniel Suárez, Christopher Bell, William Byron and Harrison Burton have all wheeled Silver Hare Racing-prepared cars to burnish their road-racing abilities in top-flight equipment.
The team offers six, professionally built and maintained TA2 chassis from Howe Racing for both competition and private testing. Silver Hare Racing has a dedicated, fulltime crew and operates out of a state-of-the-art facility in High Point, North Carolina. At the track, two 53-foot Featherlite transporters serve as the team’s base, each outfitted with a lounge and smart TVs for data and video review, as well as for hospitality.
To further Silver Hare Racing’s driver development capabilities, the team’s race shop in High Point is now equipped with a SHOCKWAVE Simulator, a tool specifically developed for drivers to accelerate racetrack familiarity, improve car control and confidence, and build stamina. SHOCKWAVE has been involved in racing since 1965 and is currently actively participating in NASCAR, ARCA, Trans Am, Late Models, and Sprint cars. Its Trans Am package replicates a Howe Racing TA2 chassis, complete with cockpit controls and sounds.
“With NASCAR having so many more road-course races, it’s our goal for Silver Hare Racing to be the preferred team for drivers to get that road-course experience,” said Laura Hull, Silver Hare Racing co-owner and team manager. “We want to be that important step in the ladder for the young, up-and-coming drivers. We want people to know we have an arrive-and-drive program, where for people who want to run this track or another, we provide the opportunity to do that and be successful.”
Connor Mosack, driver, No. 57 Silver Hare Racing/PRG Chevrolet Camaro:
Do you feel like you’re stepping into a great unknown as you head to Pittsburgh this weekend with the TA2 Series’ first visit to the track?
“I’ve found some video of laps around the track and it actually seems like a pretty cool track, a lot of elevation change, some higher-speed, kind of faster sweeping corners, a little esses section, and also some technical sections, as well, with some blind corners. It kind of reminds me of Road Atlanta – or some parts of the track do. Road Atlanta is one of my favorites to go to, so hopefully I’ll like this track just as much.”
Do you consider yourself a quick learner when you take to a track for the very first time?
“On the road-course side, I feel like I can learn a track pretty quickly. I feel like I can get to within a second of whatever my best lap will be within about three or four laps, and then you spend the next session trying to find that next second or so. It seems like the tracks I’ve been to before, usually by my third or fourth lap I’m running the same lap time. Then, once you get the chance to look at your data and some video, you almost always go half a second or a second faster right away. That’s what happens with me, at least.”
How much of an equalizer is it that no one else has raced on this track, either?
“I feel like it helps me, not having as much experience as some of these guys at a lot of these tracks. It levels the playing field a little bit and it certainly helps me. There are other guys who can obviously find the pace quickly, too, but places people have been to a lot, or it’s their local track, they learn little tricks over time, maybe some places to pass, or lines on the track will help that other people won’t know if they’ve been just once or twice. Nobody having gone there before, or even just went to test for a day or two, that kind of eliminates the advantage that people have with years of experience at a place.”
Jake Drew, driver, No. 7 Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro:
What have you been doing to prepare for this weekend’s inaugural TA2 Series race at Pittsburgh?
“I’ve watched video, and there is a very limited amount of sim available. I’ve just been doing a lot of video studying and trying to memorize it as best I can without getting any muscle memory out of it that you get on the sim. I think my Silver Hare Chevrolet is going to do great at Pittsburgh. I feel that I’m hungry, I feel the whole team is hungry, we’re looking for another win. I think the track surface is pretty ideal, it looks smooth, it’s got some elevation, not a lot of bumps. The track’s definitely well-maintained, it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s got some high-speed stuff, which I like. Seems like a great mix of everywhere we’ve been so far, with some elevation, some blind corners, it’s got some length to it, like NOLA, where you can get into a rhythm. You’re going to have to stay on top of it and get as good of a balance as you can and kind of roll with it.”
Your fifth-ever TA2 race takes you to your fifth new track, but this time the rest of the field is racing on the track for the very first time. Your thoughts on that?
“I’m excited to see more people be in the same boat that I am, where we’ve all got to go somewhere and learn something, something people can maybe be creative with, where maybe you can see someone else kind of hit on something and run well, or see others struggle, you never know There are a lot of unknowns, but I think it’s going to be really exciting. I hope it turns out to be a positive weekend for everyone.”
Ironically, while not on the 2.75-mile, 19-turn big circuit, you have competed at Pitt Race before. How did that go?
“I raced at the go-kart track there back in 2019. It’s on the same property but they don’t actually overlap. I’ve got to say, after that week the place definitely owes me one. We were there for a big event, and it was to win a ticket to go to what’s called the Rotax Grand Finals that were run in Italy that year. People from all over the world earned tickets to that race. I always wanted to go and still haven’t. I made my way there all the way from Southern California to Pittsburgh that summer, I qualified on the pole, I won two of three heat races, I won the pre-final, and about three laps into the final my fuel pump failed and my engine was done and I lost the race and I didn’t win the ticket after I dominated the whole week. And the only reason I didn’t win one of the heat races, it was because my fuel pump went bad. That was a bummer. A win this weekend would definitely be sweet.”