NASCAR, ARCA Young Gun Jake Drew’s TA2 Debut Nets Solid Fourth-Place Finish; Fulltimers Connor Mosack, Boris Said Jr., Both Encounter Mechanical Issues

Overview

Date: March 23, 2024

Event: The Bennett/Bridgehaul Classic (Round 2 of 12)

Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli

Division: Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series

Location: Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta

Layout: 2.54-mile, 12-turn road course

Format: 40 laps or 75 minutes

Weather: Cloudy, upper-60s

Winner: Thomas Merrill of Mike Cope Racing

Silver Hare Racing:

  • Jake Drew – Started 9th, Finished 4th (Running, completed 40/40 laps
  • Boris Said Jr. – Started 7th, Finished 28th (Rear end, completed 23/40 laps)
  • Connor Mosack – Started 6th, Finished 30th (Exhaust, completed 3/40 laps)

Jake Drew, Driver, No. 7 Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro:

“Just super happy to be part of the team, part of the family. I felt like we made strong gains throughout the weekend. I learned a lot. This is definitely the most tools, data, feedback and teammate support that I’ve had in a long, long time. A lot more tools to be used than I’ve ever had in my career, so it was cool to piece it all together. I wasn’t too happy with my final practice session, which ended up hurting our starting position in the race, but I felt like in the race I was really strong and kind of made steady improvements all the way through. I would’ve loved to have had a lot more green-flag laps at the end, just needed a little more time. But I’m happy to bring home a clean car, fighting for a podium – almost had it there, a couple of feet off, but we’ll try again next time.”

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

“It was a pretty good weekend. The car was fast from the beginning to when it ended for us. Unfortunately, we had that problem, but we had good speed throughout, so it’s all eyes looking forward to NOLA. It was just unfortunate how it ended. Big thanks to everyone from Hendrick Auto Group, HendrickCars.com. It was a good race for our first time together as far as speed, and that definitely makes us feel good moving forward.”

Connor Mosack, Driver, No. 77 Silver Hare Racing/PRG Chevrolet Camaro:

“An unfortunate early ending for us, I feel like we had a really good racecar – I felt like that in practice yesterday. The tires were still coming to us there and our lap times were right there with the leaders and we were only going to get better, I felt like. I wish we could’ve seen what we had, but the Silver Hare guys did a great job building a fast racecar. We’ll just have to figure out what the issue is and how to prevent that from happening in the future. Tough day, but at least we know we have a fast car and hopefully can take that to NOLA and hopefully we can get our first win there.”

Laura Hull, Co-Owner, Silver Hare Racing:

“Road Atlanta, she was good to us and she was bad to us this weekend. The good thing is we got to get the race in when it was dry. We had three really fast cars, well-prepared, they had a lot of speed, all three started in the top-10. We didn’t get to qualify due to the rain, we felt like we could have gained positions if we had been able to. Just some bad luck there with our 77 Silver Hare/Pinnacle Racing Group Chevy Camaro. Unfortunately, a piece broke underneath and there was a little bit of a fire. Thankful, though, that Connor’s safe and the car didn’t get hurt too badly. Boris’s HendrickCars.com Chevy, again, nothing that could be helped, just a mechanical thing. We believe the driveshaft broke but we don’t know why, yet. And Jake Drew, what a fantastic young man, and what a great drive he had today. We felt good about him coming to the team. He drove from ninth and almost got a podium in his first TA2 race ever, and his first race ever at Road Atlanta. We’re just going to go back to the shop, where everybody’s been doing a great job, and we’ll just get prepared for NOLA.”

Next Up

Round three of the 2024 Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series takes Silver Hare Racing to the NOLA SpeedTour April 12-14 at NOLA Motorsports Park in Avondale, Louisiana. The weekend kicks off with a pair of TA2 test sessions Friday, April 12, at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. CDT. Official TA2 practice begins at 9:50 a.m. Saturday, April 13, followed by qualifying at 3:55 p.m. Start time Sunday, April 14, for the 37-lap, 75-minute race around the 2.75-mile, 16-turn NOLA circuit is 12:10 p.m. Series partner MAVTV will provide live television coverage augmented via live video stream on the Trans Am channel on YouTube.

-SilverHareRacing-