Story By: LAZ DENES / SILVER HARE RACING – HIGH POINT, NC – Fresh off a three-pack of top-seven finishes last Saturday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, the Silver Hare Racing driver trio of Connor Mosack, Boris Said Jr. and Jake Drew are relishing the opportunity to get right back at it this weekend at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin for their second of back-to-back Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series race weekends.
They’ll be chasing after the team’s second victory of the season during Saturday’s 25-lap, 75-minute race around the mammoth 4.048-mile, 14-turn layout about an hour’s drive north of Milwaukee in the eighth of 12 stops on the 2024 TA2 Series calendar.
Mosack, the 25-year-old from Charlotte, North Carolina and driver of the No. 57 Silver Hare Racing/PRG Chevrolet Camaro who finished fifth last weekend at Mid-Ohio, will be competing in the TA2 race at Road America for the fourth year in a row and first with Silver Hare. Best of his previous three outings was his fourth-place finish from the third starting position in 2022. His Road America debut in 2021 was a hugely promising one before an incident with four laps remaining plucked him from second place and relegated him to a 23rd-place result. Last year, after qualifying fifth, a mechanical issue ended his day just four laps into the race. Three weeks after last year’s TA2 race, Mosack was back at Road America in a Joe Gibbs Racing entry for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race. He qualified seventh and was running solidly in the top-10 before a rear gear failure ended his bid five laps from the finish.
Said, the 20-year-old driver of the No. 75 HendrickCars.com/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro who finished seventh at Mid-Ohio last weekend, raced at Road America for the first time last year on a weekend filled with mechanical issues. The Escondido, California native and son of veteran racer Boris Said is confident in the prospects of a breakthrough run this weekend at the track he calls his favorite.
Meanwhile Drew, the 24-year-old from Fullerton, California and driver of the No. 7 Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro, finished third at Mid-Ohio for his second podium in his seventh career TA2 start. His first podium came by way of his runner-up finish in just his second start April 14 at NOLA Motorsports Park in Avondale, Louisiana. 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 Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. As is the case most every weekend on the TA2 tour, Drew will be taking to the Road America circuit for the first time. But he’s certainly proven to be a quick study.
This weekend’s Road America SpeedTour kicks off with test sessions at noon and 3:40 p.m. CDT Thursday, followed by Friday’s official TA2 practice at 10:20 a.m. and qualifying at 3:20 p.m. Race time Saturday is 12:05 p.m. and the 25-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, July 4.
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:
Road America is a track where you have a good deal of experience, including racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race last summer. Your thoughts on going back there this weekend?
“I feel like it’s a place I’m pretty comfortable going to and I feel like we’ve got some good notes on the repave from last year – at least in the Xfinity race, we didn’t get a lot of laps in the TA2 race with a mechanical issue pretty early. But I like the track and I feel like I know where to make speed there and what my car needs to do. Unfortunately, I’ll be missing Thursday testing because of a NASCAR sponsor commitment in Chicago, but I know Jake and Boris can get us a good balance and we’ll transfer that over to my car and we’ll work in that final practice (Friday) to get it up to speed before qualifying.”
What do you need out of your racecar to be able to consistently turn good laps at Road America?
“I think braking is really important there. You have a lot of fourth-to-first-gear corners where there’s a lot of speed to be gained in the brake zones. With the repave, last year it was kind of a one-groove track and anything outside the main groove was really slick and hard to race somebody if you were pushed out. We anticipate that being a little bit better this year, but we really won’t know for sure until we get there if it’s gotten better. If that’s the case, then you just have to be that much more diligent on hitting your line and hitting your marks because, if you miss them, then the penalty is a little bit greater not having grip where you need it to be.”
Boris Said Jr., driver, No. 75 HendrickCars.com/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro:
Another iconic American track is on tap for this weekend. Your thoughts about racing at Road America?
“It’s definitely my favorite track, by far, so I’m really excited for it. I think we’re going to be really good there, too. It’s a place where if you’re faster than somebody, you’re going to go by them pretty quickly, you can’t really block there. There are a lot of tracks that are very flowy, this track is just attack, attack, attack, just drive aggressively. It’s fast, and all of us like racing there, which goes a long way as far as your confidence and your ability to perform well there. My last several races have been good, just learning more and more and getting faster. I want to keep that going at Road America.”
What makes Road America so special for you, personally?
“One thing that stands out is it’s really defined as far as how the track carves its way through the trees, as opposed to some tracks that are a lake of pavement. I’m talking about the way your eyes are looking through it as you make your way around there. The track is very defined by the surrounding landscape. It reminds me a lot of off-roading, just the way the track blends in with the landscape. It’s also relevant to a lot of other tracks, like if we’re good there, we’ll be good at Watkins Glen and a few other tracks coming up.”
Jake Drew, driver, No. 7 Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro:
Road America presents your latest challenge in a TA2 car. What are your expectations as you head there for the first time?
“I’m excited to go to Road America. It’s a track I’ve heard a lot about since I was a young kid. I’ve watched many forms of racing there, so it’s pretty cool to go experience a new track I’ve watched so many of my favorite drivers drive at over the years. It’s probably the biggest track I’ll ever drive on and I’m excited to tackle the big challenge. It’s a very technical track in the way all the corners are so spread out from each other, so every mistake made in a corner is magnified by the distance of those straightaways. Every little bit you lose in the previous corner is taken into effect all the way down to the next one. So having a good car, which I’m not worried about with Silver Hare Racing, and learning the track as best I can and making as few mistakes as possible are going to be the big keys to the weekend. Last weekend at Mid-Ohio was the biggest car count I’ve experienced and it was pretty hard to find clear track and run clear laps in practice. That’ll make our practice time this weekend need to be as productive as possible so I can make the most of it and learn all I can in a short amount of time.”
You’re fresh off your second podium of the season last Saturday at Mid-Ohio and your results through the first seven career TA2 races have been very consistent. To what do you attribute your success, so far?
“I feel like I came to grips with the TA2 car pretty quickly. Granted, there are always things to learn in motorsports and I feel like I keep finding little nuances and things every weekend that I take mental note of and I put in the bank and take to the next one. But I do think this series is ultra-competitive and everybody is always on their A-game and everybody is always pushing to be the best they can be. We had a podium early in the year and it took a few races to get back there, so we’re just going to keep working as hard as we can. It’s always good to have some momentum from the previous week and build off that and immediately go into another one. I have a lot of confidence going into this weekend hoping for another strong finish.”