Silver Hare Racing Heads North of the Border

Story By: LAZ DENES / SILVER HARE RACING – HIGH POINT, NC – After having to wait eight weeks between rounds eight and nine of the 2024 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series, the Silver Hare Racing team and its driver duo of Jake Drew and Boris Said Jr. welcome the much more agreeable turnaround of just eight days between last Friday’s round nine at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International and this Saturday’s round 10 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.

Saturday’s 41-lap, 75-minute CTMP SpeedTour event is the first for the Trans Am Series since 2014 at the 2.459-mile, 10-turn circuit about an hour’s drive north and east of downtown Toronto . And, for the first time since last September at World Wide Technology Raceway (WWTR) outside St. Louis, where Silver Hare’s Connor Zilisch drove to a dominating pole-to-checkered-flag victory in the TA2 class, cars from all five Trans Am classes – TA, TA2, XGT, SGT and GT – are represented on the 27-car entry list, including 20 in TA2.

Silver Hare returned to action at Watkins Glen last weekend after the lengthy summer hiatus and posted a pair of solid top-eight finishes – fourth place from the fourth starting position for Drew, and eighth place from the 12th starting position for Said. Drew and Said find themselves on equal footing with 25 of the 27 drivers on this weekend’s entry list as they’ll be racing on the ultra-fast circuit for the very first time. Only TA-class driver Amy Ruman and TA2 Pro-Am Challenge-class driver Tom Sheehan were among the 27-car field that competed in the 2014 race at the 63-year-old facility originally known as Mosport Park. That race was won, appropriately enough, by Canadian veteran sportscar competitor and former NASCAR road-course ringer Ron Fellows.

Drew, the 24-year-old from Fullerton, California, and driver of the No. 7 Silver Hare Racing/Franklin Road Apparel Chevrolet Camaro who’s competing in his first career TA2 season, narrowly missed his fourth podium finish of 2024 at Watkins Glen last weekend. He scored his first of the season with a second-place finish in just his second TA2 start April 14 at NOLA Motorsports Park in Avondale, Louisiana, then added back-to-back third-place finishes in late June at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, and Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. A native of Fullerton, California, Drew is a veteran of a half-dozen NASCAR Truck Series events in 2023 and a 23-race slate of ARCA Menards Series outings from 2021 to 2023 that featured three road-course victories in 2022. He arrives at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park fourth in the driver standings, atop the Rookie of the Year standings by a 41-point margin, and second by a 10-point margin in the Young Guns standings for drivers 25 and under.

Said, the 20-year-old first-year driver of the No. 75 HendrickCars.com/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro, is riding a streak of five top-eight finishes in a row – eighth at WWTR on May 11, a career-best TA2 finish of sixth on May 25 at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, followed by finishes of seventh at Mid-Ohio and eighth at Road America in leadup to his eighth-place run last weekend at Watkins Glen. He arrives at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park ninth in the driver standings and fourth among the Young Guns.

This weekend’s CTMP SpeedTour kicks off with a three-pack of test sessions Thursday at 10 a.m., noon and 2:40 p.m. EDT. Official practice is set for 11:50 a.m. Friday, followed by qualifying at 3:50 p.m. Race time is 2:15 p.m. Saturday 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. 12.

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.”

Jake Drew, driver, No. 7 Silver Hare Racing/Franklin Road Apparel Chevrolet Camaro:

You’re headed to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the first Trans Am race there since 2014. What do you know about the track, and what will be your approach this weekend?

“It definitely looks to be high-speed. I’ve seen some NASCAR Truck Series races there over the years and what not and it looks like the finishes there can be spectacular. But I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s a place not a lot of people have a lot of experience at, so I feel like that can play into my favor, we’re all going to have to learn a new track. I think my Silver Hare guys are going to bring me another fast racecar, and we’re going to learn the track and do our best to try and get our first win together.”

You won’t be the only one seeing the track for the first time this weekend among the TA2 competitors. Do you feel like you’ll be starting out the weekend on a little more equal footing to the TA2 veterans in the field?

“Learning a new track has been part of the norm for me this year, so that’s nothing out of the ordinary. We’ll just keep doing as we do and do the best we can.”

The TA2 cars will be joined by the bigger Trans Am cars and GT competitors in the combined field this weekend. Will that be a complicating factor for you?

“Not too sure, I’ll just have to take it as it comes because I have not done that before. I feel like the practices could be a little bit difficult, so it could be a busy track and could breed a lot of cautions and limit track time. But we’ll just capitalize when we can and do the best as humanly possible.”

Boris Said Jr., driver, No. 75 HendrickCars.com/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro:

Overall thoughts as you head to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the first time this weekend?

“I went there once to watch Dad race. It looks fun and it looks fast – it seems a lot like Watkins Glen, I would say. I’ve run it a lot on the simulator, so I can’t wait to get out there in my HendrickCars.com/Silver Hare Camaro this weekend. It’s seems exciting, it’s a new track for us, which makes it even for everyone. No one has any experience there, so that can turn out to be a really good thing for us.”

You compare the track to Watkins Glen. Is it like any of the others you race at in the TA2 Series?

“It’s definitely a fast track like Watkins Glen, like I said, and Road America, one of those faster, more exposed tracks. That makes it really fun. Dad’s run there a lot, like so many of the other tracks we go to, and I’ve always wanted to run there because it’s one of the good, fast tracks.”

How do you feel about all of the Trans Am classes running together in a combined race field this weekend?

“Obviously, it’s not ideal to have really fast cars out there as well as other cars that aren’t as fast as us, so that can be a complicating factor. We’ll have to pay attention to the rearview mirror a whole lot more than usual, obviously, and then try to be mindful of the cars that are slower than us at the same time. It is what it is. Obviously, it’s not ideal, but we’ll do our best to get a handle on the rhythm of navigating our way through it all during our track time leading up to the race, and then through the course of the race on Saturday.”