Story By: LAZ DENES / TEAMSLR – ST. AUGUSTINE, FL – After an eight-week summer hiatus on the Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series schedule, TeamSLR makes a highly anticipated return to competition this weekend with drivers Barry Boes and Carson Kvapil ready to tackle the 3.4-mile, 11-turn Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International circuit during this weekend’s Mission Foods Watkins Glen SpeedTour.
It’s been highly anticipated because, despite the lengthy break in the points-paying national series schedule, TeamSLR and its M1 Racecars enjoyed shining moments on both coasts in the eight weeks since the series contested rounds seven and eight on back-to-back weekends June 22 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington and June 29 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
First, a star-studded, three-car TeamSLR contingent ventured to the non-points SpeedTour All-Star Race July 19-20 at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, featuring all-star drivers Greg Biffle, Ken Schrader and Scott Speed paired with designated TA2 drivers Boes, Connor Mosack and Tristan McKee, respectively. Speed qualified the No. 17 Cube 3 Architecture/Franklin Road Apparel/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro on the pole for the main event and led every lap of the first half of the race before turning the car over to his 13-year-old Team Chevrolet development driver, who saw the first TA2 race action of his young career come to an unfortunate end with a flat left-rear tire in the closing laps of the second stint. Speed and McKee netted an eighth-place finish in the cumulative results based on average finish of the first and second stints.
Meanwhile Mosack, who drove fulltime for TeamSLR in 2021 and 2022 and scored resounding victories at Watkins Glen both years, took over from Schrader in 17th place at the halfway point of the All-Star Race and was the biggest mover of the second stint, driving all the way up to fourth by the checkered flag. He and Schrader combined for an 11th-place cumulative finish. And tops among the TeamSLR contingent were Biffle and Boes in the No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Ford Mustang, which was scored with a fourth-place cumulative finish.
The following weekend, July 27-28, M1 Racecars earned an impressive sweep of the TA2 Western Championship doubleheader at Portland (Ore.) International Raceway by Boes and Southern Californian Tim Carroll. The victories came from opposite ends of the starting grid. Boes and his No. 27 Mustang had to rally from the back of the Saturday race grid after an issue in qualifying and scored his first career Western Championship victory in his ninth career start. Carroll started the Sunday race on the pole in his No. 46 CRDMFG.com Chevrolet Camaro, the grid determined by the fastest race laps in the Saturday race, and led every lap en route to his first career Western Championship victory.
Boes hopes to carry the momentum from his All-Star Race and Western Championship performances this weekend in his fourth career TA2 Series start at Watkins Glen. He arrives at The Glen with a 97-point lead in the Pro-Am Challenge standings after finishing first in the race-within-a-race four times in eight national series rounds this season.
Back with the TeamSLR camp this weekend for his fourth career TA2 Series start is the 21-year-old Kvapil. The Team Chevrolet development driver and son of 2003 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Travis Kvapil drove to a solid podium finish of third in his last TA2 outing in the No. 28 SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro June 3 at the Pittsburgh International Race Complex. Kvapil certainly hasn’t looked like a young driver with zero road-racing experience before he qualified second and finished fifth in his TA2 debut in June 2023 at Mid-Ohio, then followed it up by qualifying third at Road America and moving up to second on the opening lap of the race before getting punted off track and sustaining damage beyond repair. He’s enjoyed success in numerous other racing disciplines already this year, including top-five finishes for JR Motorsports in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and top-three finishes for Pinnacle Racing Group in the ARCA Menards Series. Kvapil also has a pair of wins in six races on the zMAX CARS Tour in the Late Model Stock class.
Another pair of M1 Racecars entries fielded by Peterson Racing return to the TA2 Series for the third race in a row and for the fourth time this season. Last year’s TA2 Series Rookie of the Year Austin Green returns to the cockpit of the No. 89 Ford Mustang that he qualified on the pole at Mid-Ohio and drove to a fifth-place finish at the season-opening race at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway in February, while team owner and Masters-class competitor Doug Peterson is back behind the wheel of the No. 87 Ford Mustang.
Riding along with this weekend’s TeamSLR drivers and their M1 Racecars, as it will all season long, is Nashville, Tennessee-based Franklin Road Apparel Company, which has been a longtime team supporter.
M1 Racecars was represented on the podium at 12 of the 13 TA2 rounds in 2023, highlighted by a pair of victories by Rafa Matos for Peterson Racing. Team SLR’s Dillon Machavern and Thad Moffitt both scored podium finishes, as did Mosack at the season-opening event at Sebring, when he qualified on the pole and led the first 19 laps of the race before finishing third. Evan Slater earned TeamSLR’s first podium finish of 2024 Memorial Day weekend with his second-place finish at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, and Kvapil followed with his podium in the series’ inaugural race at Pittsburgh.
This weekend’s Mission Foods Watkins Glen SpeedTour kicks off Thursday with a 35-minute TA2 test session at 2 p.m. EDT, followed by a 30-minute official TA2 practice session at 4:45 p.m. Qualifying is at noon Friday, with the 30-lap, 75-minute TA2 race, round nine of 12 on the 2024 schedule, set for 4 p.m. with live television provided 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, Sept. 5.
Barry Boes, Driver, No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Ford Mustang:
Safe to say it’s a welcome return to the TA2 points-paying season at Watkins Glen after the long summer break? What are your thoughts as you head to The Glen?
“Watkins Glen is a fun racetrack. It’s got a lot of challenges to it and you’ve got to use a lot of different driving techniques, so you’ve just got to be a really good all-around driver. There are some gains there I can stand to make and I plan on getting on with that this weekend. Going there in M1 Racecars equipment for the first time this weekend is going to make a big difference for me. The M1 just stays more of the same during the whole race, so if I don’t have to change my technique as much because of the car through the race, then I can concentrate more on me, and that’s a good thing.”
What are the different driving techniques you’re referring to that come into play in trying to turn a fast lap at Watkins Glen?
“There are several corners that have very long downhill entries that require you to enter at just the perfect speed and then scrub speed off for a long time. Then there are some where you have to stop the car and point-and-shoot it and do it just right. And then there are some mid- to high-speed corners that you’ve really got to carry some good momentum through. There are also mid- to high-speed corners where the entry is more important, and there are mid- to high-speed corners where the exit is more important. So it’s just a smorgasborg of techniques that you need to go fast there.”
You certainly didn’t let all of the eight-week hiatus go to waste as you took advantage of a couple of opportunities to enjoy some success on the racetrack with your fourth-place finish with Greg Biffle in the All-Star Race at Lime Rock, then following it up with your first TA2 Western Championship win the following weekend at Portlan. Talk about that.
“Time in the car is time in the car, and time away from the car is not good. You just need time in the car. Lime Rock I think went well because it’s a track where I’m just very comfortable with most of the technique you need there, and there are a couple of corners there that I do better than almost all the pros, so that gives me a little bit of an ability to pass there. Portland I’ve never been to before, and I never thought I had a chance to win the race, especially after we had to start from the back because of the problem we had in qualifying. What I think did it for me was the ability to drive the car consistently and fast and the result just took care of itself. I’ll take that any day of the week.”
Carson Kvapil, Driver, No. 28 SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
You’ll be making the first Watkins Glen appearance of your young racing career. Any special thoughts about this weekend’s event?
“It’s really cool to race at Watkins Glen. It’s one of those icons of America for road-course racing. It’ll be great to make some laps there in a TA2 car. Hopefully we’ll have a really good finish. I feel like I’ll really be able to adapt to it, even with the boot. I think we’ll have it figured out.”
This weekend marks just your fourth career TA2 start, but you seem to have taken to road-course racing in these M1 Racecars with a podium finish in your last outing at Pittsburgh, and a fifth-place run in your debut last year at Mid-Ohio. What are your expectations for this weekend?
“Really, like all my races the last year or two, we’ve just been wanting to finish them all, finish all the laps, get as much experience as I can. Obviously, we want to finish good and get some good runs and get on the podium, but at the same time we’re here just to get laps and get experience. That’s really the main thing, and TeamSLR is a great team to help me learn a lot of the skills I need to accelerate my career.”
What is your impression of racing in the TA2 Series?
“The TA2 cars are really good racecars, I have to say – I don’t know how else to explain it. They handle well anywhere you take them, they’re more traditional, like a Late Model in that they can go left and right. That kind of plays to my favor because they’re similar to the cars I grew up racing. You can really just drive them hard. They don’t feel super heavy, so they don’t slide a bunch, they’re pretty well into the track and they’ve got pretty good aero. They are honestly really fun to drive, the tires don’t wear too much, so you can pretty much be hammer down the whole race.”
In your limited TA2 experience the last two seasons, can you say it’s contributed to any of the gains you’ve made racing Late Models and in NASCAR and ARCA?
“I’m sure it has but I just don’t know why, really. As racers, we race so much and it just kind of all runs together, right? I’m sure there are some disciplines and stuff that I’ve really had to unlock to run these TA2 cars at the previous races, and I’m sure it’s trickled over a little bit. I’m not sure about major changes to my driving style, but I’m sure it’s definitely affected it – little subtleties.”