TeamSLR Sets Its Sights on Road Atlanta
March 20, 2025
Regulars Tristan McKee, Barry Boes Welcome Georgian Rob Clifton;
Team Partners With Guthrie’s Garage on Mike Skeen’s M1 Racecars Chevy
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (March 20, 2025) – Coming off its solid, double-podium opening weekend of the 2025 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series season last month at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway, TeamSLR and its stable of M1 Racecars drivers turn their focus on round two, this weekend’s Mission Foods Road Atlanta SpeedTour.
They’ll take to the scenic 2.54-mile, 12-turn Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta circuit for Sunday’s 40-lap, 75-minute race looking to pick up where the team left off at Sebring, where 2020 TA2 champion Mike Skeen qualified the No. 48 SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro on the pole in track-record time and brought home a runner-up finish on race day, and Barry Boes opened defense of his 2024 Pro-Am Challenge championship with a podium finish in class.
Beginning this weekend, Skeen will take over the No. 2 Guthrie’s Garage Chevrolet Camaro, an M1 Racecars entry that TeamSLR will run in partnership with owner Jim Guthrie’s team for the remainder of the season.
Meanwhile Boes, driver of the No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro, looks to repeat his Pro-Am victory of a year ago at Road Atlanta. He’ll be joined in the TeamSLR lineup by fellow full-season competitor Tristan McKee, the 14-year-old Chevrolet development driver, and Rob Clifton, a familiar face on the SCCA Spec Racer tour who will be making his second career TA2 start.
McKee’s official rookie TA2 Series season in the No. 28 Spire Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro began with a seventh-place finish from the fifth spot on the starting grid at Sebring. He appeared headed for a strong, top-five finish before contact from behind on the final lap cost him multiple positions. Sunday will mark just his fourth TA2 start since debuting last October at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, where he finished fourth, and closing out the season in November at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
The Kannapolis, North Carolina driver recently signed a development agreement with Spire Motorsports and is also contesting a part-time schedule on the CARS Tour, where he opened the season with a runner-up finish in the Pro Late Model race March 1 at New River All-American Speedway in Jacksonville, North Carolina. McKee became the CARS Tour’s youngest winner in the Pro Late Model division as a 12-year-old in 2023.
Boes, the seventh-year TA2 Series competitor from Ooltewah, Tennessee, who drove to seven Pro-Am victories in last year’s 12 events, will be making his eighth career Road Atlanta appearance in TA2 this weekend. In the previous seven outings, Boes’ eighth-place overall finish in last year’s race at the Georgia circuit was bested only by his sixth-place finish in the second half of the 2020 season-ending weekend doubleheader at the track. Boes has kept himself busy since this year’s Sebring opener, competing in the March 8-9 SCCA Hoosier Super Tour doubleheader at Road Atlanta, and in last weekend’s Cube 3 Architecture Western Championship season opener at Buttonwillow (Calif.) Raceway, where he scored a third-place TA2 finish in his M1 Racecars entry.
Joining TeamSLR for the first time this weekend is Clifton, a native of Evans, Georgia, who’ll be behind the wheel of the No. 8 Clifton Construction/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro. A former Auburn University football player who was elected for the first time last November to the Georgia State House of Representatives, Clifton’s TA2 debut in the 2023 race at Road Atlanta was foiled when he was caught up in a multicar accident during a driving rainstorm that soaked the track in the closing laps.
In addition to Skeen’s No. 2 Guthrie’s Garage Chevrolet Camaro, M1 Racecars will also be represented for the first time by Pro-Am competitor Jared Odrick, who took delivery of his new chassis after the Sebring weekend last month and will campaign it as the No. 00 Black Underwear Chevrolet Camaro for Troy Benner Autosport. Odrick put his new racecar right to work in the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour event two weekends ago at Road Atlanta and won both ends of the GT2-class doubleheader from the pole.
Riding along with TeamSLR drivers and their M1 Racecars once again this season is Nashville, Tennessee-based Franklin Road Apparel Company, which has been a longtime team supporter and serves as associate partner on all TeamSLR entries. Also continuing its support of the overall TeamSLR effort is Cube 3 Architecture.
This weekend’s Mission Foods Road Atlanta SpeedTour kicks off with a pair of TA2 test sessions at 11:25 a.m. and 4:55 p.m. EDT Friday. Official practice is set for 10:35 a.m. Saturday, followed by qualifying at 4:45 p.m. Race time is 1:45 p.m. Sunday with live video streaming coverage provided by new series broadcast partner Speed Sport 1, as well as the Trans Am channel on YouTube.
Tristan Mckee, Driver, No. 28 Spire Gainbridge/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
You’re headed to round two of the season at Road Atlanta. What’s your outlook as you head into the weekend?
“I’ve done a little bit of testing there, so I think we know what we’re in for once we get there this weekend. We made some laps, so that’ll help us and I think we’ll be all right, we’ve just got to get a good qualifying spot. We qualified pretty well at Sebring, but I’d like to make it a few spots better, in the top-two or three. But everything will mainly be a learning experience, like it is whenever we race somewhere for the first time. Just keep learning and learning.”
You qualified fifth in the season opener at Sebring last month and held that relative position before contact from another driver cost you a couple of positions on the final lap. Does that make you feel more determined to bring home a top finish at Road Atlanta?
“Sebring was a pretty good weekend as far as practice and qualifying, but the race was pretty rough because it was filled with cautions. Hopefully that won’t be the case at Road Atlanta. The races I’ve seen there seem to settle down, and it gets kind of hard to pass once everybody gets through the first lap. Hopefully everything goes well in practice and qualifying and we’ll get in some good racing and get some longer runs. The goal will be to take advantage of the long weekend, get all the laps and experience we can, and we should be good to go.”
Barry Boes, Driver, No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
Your overall thoughts as the series heads to Road Atlanta this weekend?
“We finished eighth in this race last year and it was a relatively clean weekend, so that’s definitely something to build on. It was one of my first times in the M1 car and it was a learning process about the car and the setup for the track. I felt like I was getting through key parts of the track better than I ever had before, which was very encouraging, and I’ve definitely learned a lot over the last year, so I’m really looking forward to seeing if I’ve figured it out enough to really make a go of it.”
You’ve been busy since we last saw you at Sebring, having run the past two weekends in the Hoosier Super Tour race at Road Atlanta two weekends ago, and then last weekend in the TA2 Western Championship race at Buttonwillow. Talk about those outings.
“The Super Tour weekend at Road Atlanta was rough because we had issues all weekend, so it wasn’t the most fun in the world. And last weekend at Buttonwillow, I would’ve loved to have won, but everything would’ve had to be just right for me to win that one. But it was a really fun race and I did get on the podium.”
How would you characterize your season-opening TA2 weekend at Sebring last month?
“I thought it was a really good weekend, for the most part. I qualified maybe not quite as well as I would’ve wanted to, but I led (the Pro-Am Challenge class) most of the race and I would’ve won if I hadn’t gotten taken out on the last lap, and I would’ve been in the top-10 overall. But it still felt really, really good, and I’ve got high hopes for Road Atlanta. I’d love to be in the top-10 overall, and I definitely think it’s a possibility.”
Rob Clifton, Driver, No. 8 Clifton Construction/SLR-M1Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:
What brings you back to Road Atlanta for your second career TA2 race?
“I’ve been racing primarily SCCA Spec Racer Ford, then I raced the Trans Am Series two years ago at Road Atlanta and just wanted to get back in and try it again. I’d probably driven Road Atlanta more than any other track, but it’s very different in a Spec Racer than it is in a TA2 car, so it took a little getting used to the last time – the better part of practice and qualifying. We were able to do a test session in the TA2 car there last month and I felt good about it. In fact, the very last lap I ran, when the track had gotten much hotter and the tires were pretty well gone, was my best lap of the whole day. So I’m excited to come back and have a couple of test sessions and a practice session before we have to qualify and race.”
What would a successful weekend for you look like?
“There will be time to sit down and look at data, look at video, get some more specifics, and that should help me a lot. I’m excited, but by no means do I expect to finish on the podium. My goal is top 50 percent. If I can do that, I’ll be happy. Two years ago, it was a weird day because it rained right up until it was time to race, so there was a dry line and half the field started on rain tires and the other half on slicks. And then it rained again during the final laps and I got caught behind three cars that spun in front of me and just beached it. I was running in the top 50 percent to that point. This year, I just want to finish, and finish in the top 50 percent.”
How much do you believe your extensive experience at Road Atlanta, albeit your relatively brief time there behind the wheel of a TA2 car, will help you this weekend?
“That track definitely has a learning curve to it for someone who’s brand new, so for any newbies that will be there, that’ll give me some advantage. We’ll just have to see how it all transpires on the track. These cars are momentum cars, so it’ll be about getting the nose down really hard and doing some real trail braking through the turns so it grabs. So far, session by session I’ve gotten a little bit quicker, learning a little bit more, and I know I still have room to grow. But I think with some good coaching, my hope from the first session this weekend to the time we qualify, I’m hoping to knock off a second to maybe a second and a quarter off my time. That’ll be the plan.”
About TeamSLR:
TeamSLR (Scott Lagasse Racing) competes fulltime in the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli’s newly renamed Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series in a multifaceted effort that includes dedicated entries in the TA2 division, customer programs, driver coaching and car construction. Its history dates back to 1985 and covers a wide spectrum of motorsports, including NASCAR, IMSA, SCCA, ARCA and ASA. TeamSLR is a family-owned organization run by Scott Lagasse Sr., and Scott Lagasse Jr., The father-and-son duo have combined to win more than 120 races and seven championships across a variety of series and styles of racecars, from paved ovals to road courses to dirt tracks. For more information, please visit us online at www.TeamSLR.com, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram and on LinkedIn.
