Story By: LAZ DENES / TEAMSLR – WATKINS GLEN, NY
Date: Aug. 23, 2024
Event: Mission Foods Watkins Glen SpeedTour (Round 9 of 12)
Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli
Division: Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series
Location: Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International
Layout: 3.4-mile, 11-turn road course
Format: 30 laps or 75 minutes
Weather: Sunny, mid-70s
TeamSLR:
● Barry Boes – Started 11th, Finished 10th (Running, completed 30/30 laps)
● Carson Kvapil – Started 3rd, Finished 25th (Shredded Tire, completed 10/30 laps)
Noteworthy:
● Boes scored his fifth Pro-Am Challenge-class victory in nine races this season and third in the last four races. He entered the weekend with a 97-point lead in the championship within a championship.
● Boes’ 10th-place overall finish, his best in four career starts at Watkins Glen, was all the more impressive as he was spun from behind on the second lap of the race. He limped his car to pit lane to replace a flat right-rear tire, rejoined the race in 26th and still on the lead lap, and picked up 16 positions the rest of the way.
● Austin Green of Peterson Racing was the highest-finishing M1 Racecars competitor for the second race in a row, placing second from his eighth starting position.
Barry Boes, Driver No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Ford Mustang:
“(Adam) Andretti hit me from behind coming into turn one, so I knew he was going to be aggressive. I made sure I left him no room coming into the Bus Stop and he decided to try to make a little room, anyway, took me out, lost a tire. I thought the car was really messed up and then I realized it was the tire so I rolled it back to pit road to my TeamSLR guys as fast as I possibly could. They changed that tire in record time and got me back out there again, and then the car was fantastic. I was passing people like they were driving in a different class. This feels fantastic.”
Carson Kvapil, Driver No. 17 SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
“I thought all weekend we had a really good car. I thought in practice and qualifying we had a really good piece. Thought we were easily top-three in speed and we had a shot to go get the pole. We qualified third, I think we were only two-tenths off the lead time, so I didn’t think that was too bad. We struggled a little bit with some turn at the very start of the race just with the fuel load and stuff like that. And then we had that tire problem come to us again. Qualifying was the same issue, we did our qualifying run and then the right-front tire came apart on the last lap. Not really sure what the deal was with that, but the same thing happened in the race and it kind of stinks. We had a really fast car and I thought at the end of the race it was going to come to us. We were kind of in a good spot, riding in fourth, I thought we had more speed than that, I was just trying to take care of it and not kill it right away and save it for the end. Just can’t thank Scott Lagasse Racing enough, and Josh Wise and Scott Speed and everybody who’s part of the Chevy program for giving me this opportunity. Hopefully we can come back and do a little better than that next time.”
Next Up:
The 2024 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series returns to action next weekend for the first time since 2014 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, for the CTMP SpeedTour. The weekend kicks off with a three-pack of test sessions Thursday (Aug. 29) at 10 a.m., noon and 2:40 p.m. EDT. Official practice is set for 11:50 a.m. Friday (Aug. 30), followed by qualifying at 3:50 p.m. Race time Saturday (Aug. 31) for the 41-lap, 75-minute event around the 2.459-mile, 10-turn circuit is 2:15 p.m. Series partner MAVTV will provide live television coverage augmented via live video stream on the Trans Am channel on YouTube.