(Full Race Replay) Huge Trans Am TA2 Field at Laguna Seca Brings the Action

[Music] hey race fans this is a replay but to be able to watch live and hear from the drivers and see the pre and post race reaction download and subscribe to the trans am app available on both android and ios this is the only place to watch the 2021 season of trans am live with 10 hours of coverage each and every weekend live timing results and news as well as pre and post interviews as our global live stream takes you to the heart of the action to subscribe download the trans am app or scan the qr code to be part of the fastest growing series in america subscriptions for the race weekend are just 9.99 and 59.99 for a full season so come and join us for the 2021 season on the trans am app the only way to see the races live and get your muscle car media [Music] on the left-hand side in all yellow raffamatos will try and take the lead away from mike skein as they dive up the hill under the weathertech raceway laguna seca bridge and down to the android curve for the first time skeen has the lead here comes merrill up the inside three-way into andretti mel will take the lead brilliantly that's the confidence that we're talking about right there and thomas merrill beautiful beautiful move into turn one rafa matas will get his brazilian bride boiling after that because he was duffed up unceremoniously he slots into third place but merrill the salinas maestro is off and running into turn three leading this race from skein and matos the rest of the group following on in fourth place michael self leading that group yeah connor mosaic got another great start sam mayer looks like he's pumping his way through the field here as well so a couple great starts there for the legacy cars yeah i talked to scott lagasse of course who's kind of mentoring both those youngsters they're in their teams they've got big futures ahead of them sam mayer is already performing very well in the truck series for nascar and uh i think he's using this opportunity to learn sonoma to learn laguna and learn his future quite literally here in trans am and we're delighted to have him we've had many uh drivers have done exactly that like christopher bell and a few others over the years and it's a great breeding ground to learn how to race stock cars fast on a road course and of course nascar now going dakota and many other tracks like watkins glen and so forth it's a great place to to fly their trade so to speak on board with rafa matas looking for the overtake on scheme does it at 11. classic absolutely classic move beautiful move by matos he's been itching to get it by him skeen was very defensive getting up into the court screw i think that my move might have happened a couple quarters sooner so look for matos to put the targets out there on thomas because thomas was taking off and uh and robert saw that did not want to see that happen because i do talking to rafa he's very confident in his in his chances this weekend i'm surprised skeen didn't defend a little harder than he did there but uh there you go michael self going well and right up there is connor mosak in fifth place his first run edwards of aging down and six got slotted back a little bit now racing with tyler cassera for seven tyler looking for his first podium here at uh laguna seca lives here on the west coast excuse me he doesn't live here on the west coast he lives in wisconsin but um tyler casera looking for a good result here and one of the my coat cars that's the number nine of key projects yeah beautiful move by keith that was a nice classic move underneath getting around i believe is that douglas anything around so it was yeah doug peterson is under attack again on board with drew nobel who is a west coast specialist in ta2 you have several different championships but this is the all national championship and it gets the very best out of them we're delighted to welcome the west coast drivers as i just saw michelle abate whose course uh had a great season last year she is a local girl down here in vegas i say local but uh at least a little bit closer to california than a lot of these guys i was who goes to number eight i was talking to michael fine and he's a west coast guy and that's what i was 79 miles an hour in the exit there uh of you know turn number 11. so that's that's pretty good extra speed but um yeah i was talking to him and i was saying you know you don't want to be the west coast guy that doesn't show up at the national event because it makes you elevate your level yeah and so you and you get introduced to new people and and you you talk around the paddock and you pick up different setups and different philosophies so it's great to see these mixed together and i think it only really elevates the west coast group and brings them to another level well that's exactly what michelle albarte told me she came to coda last year and she got involved in the national event did well she's now got sponsorship from lucas lucas oil so you know you do get noticed when you when you kind of put your head above the pulpit a little bit and don't just race regionally or locally and you really put yourself out there and she's done just that oh fantastic yeah i know we love to see that she's running 20th right now which is great and still keeping a solid run right in there and you see that uh once rafa got around and in second place he really started to put the targets out is closing the gap here on thomas merrill as they come through the corkscrew and i tell you my skiing has got oh no talking of uh none of us had the power for that but i get it but yeah that's a that's a darn shame it looks like they had a little bit of contact there racing hard i'd love to see if we could find a replay on that because i'd like to know i didn't know adam give me a systems check here this usually ends with a safety car at this point we're not sure yet we haven't seen any yellows yet uh thomas merrill leading the race has got a good lead but all of that adrenaline all that good work and goodwill and it's going to come to naught if the safety car comes out and they can't remove michelle out of the way there's two it seemed like there was two cars involved as we go back to mike scheen and he's in a good battle with conor mosak absolutely connor's connor's hunting you know he he feels he's faster he's caught mike but then mike got him in the mirror yeah that's it that's a sketchy spot you've got it you gotta check yeah i believe the safety car is probably eminent since yeah we're double yellow we're double yellows okay good uh but yeah that was a tricky spot for her to be in uh unfortunately not able to get the car be fired to get it back out there and uh and that's just a shame that really ruins your race and it's a shame for michelle and there is michelle's team talking to the trans am folk about the procedure is at this point but like i said take me through a systems check let me put you in let's say thomas's position here uh what do you talk to your engineer about now because you know the whole the whole sort of uh flavor of the race you don't want to be talking all the time when you're racing itself but now we're under yellow um do you now start to have a check about what the car's feeling what you're doing i mean there's not much you can do but what do you do yeah you might have i mean depending on what was going on looked like a car was looking really really good thomas's car looks really hooked up so um they may be talking about some nitpicky stuff and they you know there might be a little bit of feedback to give back not much adjustment you have in those cars brake bias is all you have so uh and a driver is usually pretty of thomas's caliber would be on top of that brake bias um if if he's looking at that would be a big thing for his balance but that's only just me having a ta2 car as a driver and the ta car we can adjust our anti-roll bars the stiffness of those but that's not necessarily the case there but yeah it's uh right now too you're for thomas i'm looking at if i'm in his shoes i'm feeling really confident you know i took this lead from a third place qualifying position that i wasn't happy with i i used that in my gut to drive me to make that move um i'm kind of losing confidence on my starts and my restarts compared to the way even even the way we've seen uh from sebring uh rafa you know struggled to really get that car fired off uh really good over the long run but the first few laps it just really doesn't come to life for where thomas's car looked like it came to life right away so we are slowing down procedures here at our ta2 feature race here from weathertech raceway laguna seca it's been a frantic start thomas merrill leads the race but obviously they're all packing up now what happened to michelle abate going off just past turn two and causing a safety car to come out and uh five laps of the 45 gone an hour and seven minutes still to go and that gives us a chance to take a break from laguna we'll be back with more action from ta2 after this one of the focuses of this program is not only building the car but we're building the entire student making can only happen if you do it on your own it's all about project-based learning take it out straw it up how do we build a team winner circle benefits my students in multiple ways starts off with teamwork and it's not just the standard here's the fact spit it back school it's a product that you generate that has to be worked on until it's right not until it's done i really see the students engaging in ways that we have not seen before the winner's circle allows us to work more as a team rather than individuals to create something bigger when we do like all these tasks and hands-on stuff i understand it more we've been looking a long time at how the middle class has been shrinking and how there's been a problem with people just going to college and not knowing what they want to do we really want to be able to bring 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honda civic out there in front of our local man thomas merrill who is looking to extend his lead in the championship at the moment after uh two rounds he has 59 points franklin fruttrell who's not here this weekend is second and that gives rafa matos and mike skeen who are third and fourth in the championship an opportunity and don't count out keith prochuk too he's in fifth at the moment connor mosak the youngster um racing that camaro is currently in the 28 and in sixth place uh and gentlemen i've got ben sissel back with us as well as adam andretti um i've been impressed with connor so far at the start of this race but mike skeen having a little bit of a tough start to his day yeah i would say so mike skeen but he is like we've talked about he's a tactician and he also knows thomas merrill and uh with thomas merrill somebody that races a hundred miles at ten tens i think mike skeen if he knows he doesn't have the fastest car he'll sometimes hang back right and wait for that chess move but i do have to mention michael self he's been having a lot of problems a lot of bad luck this year but he's from the west coast he's raced here quite a bit in all kinds of different uh series and then edward savage and is not going to be happy dropping back to sixth place no not after the qualifying run and and the the time that he's had here you know he's he's um he's not going to be happy with that at all but you know he was also you gotta look at the quality of drivers that got around him you know with connor mosak um you know is a high quality cat out there going out there and nothing to prove himself and and when he's out there as a talented person as connor is when he's out there with these faster guys that are really familiar with laguna it's only going to up his game now that they have no choice but to let them chase him in practice you'll pull off and not let someone like connor learn anything from you in the race you have no choice but but but to race and compete with them so he's going to learn he's smart he'll sit back there and learn so by the end of this hundred miles i would i would definitely put him in and again you ride off mike skiing at your own peril right i mean yeah he is not uh going anywhere yesterday people wrote him off and qualifying and look what he did slap the thing up on the pole so with the new track record so yeah mike skiing is you know on another level and so he's definitely someone that is not this race is not over before by a long shot what a beautiful field i do have to mention that uh there's a little friendly rivalry between edwards of agent and scott lagasse and scott borchetta and edward told me the first thing he said when he got out of the car at fourth at qualifying he's like my mice and chassis is faster than all the m1 chassis and i thought wow that's pretty telling and i even asked him can i say that on the broadcast he goes you betcha so he's out there and so now that connor mosak and that m1 chassis is ahead of him you know that he's just gunning for him but also tyler cassera you know silver hair racing this year has just had bad luck they're always fast cars jeff holly does a great job preparing these cars and uh now looks like seventh and fifth place here we go pretty well pace cars off and that means that thomas merrill will lead the field into turn 11 and restart this race we are just seven laps into the 45 thomas merrill leads across the line here at laguna chasing him down rap for matos and it looks as though mohsak's coming and going fast he's side by side almost with mike skinner as they dive into turn one the andretti curve too wide through here he's getting as much grip as he can connor and he's still in he's got his foot in he's been left out to dry on wide but he might get the inside line and he does so good racing guys fantastic racing he's gonna have the inside line again going here into turn number four uh another fast fast corner here boy closes the door there though not making it easy on him at all connor got a great restart not as good a restart as thomas so thomas really took off coming out of 11 and got a jump on that green flag on rafa he knew who he had behind him for sure well that's also helped michael self and uh edward savage as they head up towards turn six of the ray hall straight at the restart really important time in a race as a restart because that's the best opportunity i suppose uh and adam give me an idea on strategy where are you going well that was a classic mistake at laguna seca i've seen it happen a million times outbreak himself got very lucky there he overzeinardi yeah he hit him yeah very true but there he is side by side with self he he he recovered you know that i got that speaks very highly for me he's only 21 years old first time here and he he learned what not to do with the corkscrew he won't do that again but great recovery i will say this he's going to have to keep an eye on his gauges because a lot of times those pebbles you'll catch a pistol will knock the the oil pump belt off so that hopefully no red lights are coming on for connor and he could continue well agent's going to try the same move that connor mosak did last time out and go high and wide around the andretti curve and he's going to stick behind connor and try and chase him through and both get past michael self self gets a little wiggle on that might be an opportunity again for mosaic up the inside of three does take it connor recovering that spot back that he lost from that mistake up in the uh up in the court screw he's getting that by michael's self self just got a little bit loose there yeah connor is brave he is very proud he is brave no there's no question about that that's going to take him very far this sport because bravery is so important and then he mixes it with the talent that he has his learning capabilities like he said he won't do that in the court screw again got a little bit impatient and he's going to calm down he'll catch him back up and then he'll make it a race again yeah good recovery and that was a big moment because you know i mean it's almost offered to the abyss there because once you start flirting with that outside wall at the corkscrew uh all hell can break loose and you can see how steep it is up there and uh he managed to get down the hill which is a mighty feat in its own selfie either casey stoner uh damn ala rossi down the side there but got back on track and we've got a heck of a race on folks really good stuff that really opened the gap for these front three thomas merrell rafa matos and mike skeen look to have about a hundred 120 yards between the connor mosaic now yeah absolutely and and connor's now starting to spread that gap for michael self and i'm sure that we're gonna start to see him start to close the gap a little bit you know he went back to five and a half seconds back off of skiing and skein's just sitting there as the static you know as that strategic driver that he is just letting those two in front wear their cars down and set that pace and just keep them within a sniffer sniffing range well mike skein just did his fastest lap of the race so far one thirty point eight but uh rafa matos has ellipse that he his best time at one thirty point one so rafa matas the man we're on board with right now is on the pace and chasing hunting down merrell on home soil rafa really need to win i feel i i i this is true i think of a lot of brazilian drivers they're confidence drivers when they're winning they're unstoppable when they're not winning they're they're stoppable and what i mean by that is they stop themselves of course no agree yeah i know we we talked this is this so much of this game is oh there's michelle in the pits there could possibly be terminal uh you know after after the spin uh but yeah absolutely they're they're very emotional you know they wear it on their sleeve and and uh and roth is no different he's a fan he's an amazing driver no one questions that even a little bit but uh yeah he needs that confidence boost he needs that that upfront win and you know he lost a close battle in sebring and and so this right here oh what a dive down into 11. that was sensational stuff he came from so far behind from a mile behind us yeah i don't think that merrill was expecting that he knew he was going to get a challenge but not there and then and usually it costs your speed so much down the straightaway then you see how merrill went to one attack right away uh but not really you know rafa was able to keep his apex speed up yeah and that was incredible one of what a pass so rapper matos who almost took pole position is now in pole position leading this race here with 57 minutes to go he heard us talking about his confidence i guess that's it yeah he will and mike skeen's gonna be thinking to himself right how do i react now because he's still solidly in third place yeah it looks like thomas's car really fires off i said it before really fires off on a restart and then uh you know motto says that that 88 car that forward mustang it is it takes about three laps to come to life three full laps come to life and boy howdy he has it i mean he is gone and he is gonna look to check out on this mike skeen is looking like if if this is looking like ross is gonna take off too much and scheme feels like he has a car look for him to make a move yeah good point here's that overtake again unbelievable really good he came from a long way back at turn 11 made it stick and that was beautifully done and uh really looking forward to this we get another caution connor mosak could come back into play because he's about a second and a half as the number nine of keith project comes into the uh pits uh that wasn't uh due to be happening so problems there for him but it's matas maryland by kind of losing that lead group you remember i talked about learning from that lead group and now his lap times have felt fallen because he doesn't have that rabbit to chase so uh he we made like you said he needs that caution to really kind of close that gap to bring him back into this race he's definitely quicker than michael self behind him so he doesn't have any threat from behind but he just doesn't have that edge that he had before uh he made that mistake and this race could come down to uh effectively back markers because i think by the time we get down to the business end of this race they're going to be catching up with the slower cars and given that lagoon is not an easy place in the first place to pass uh we may get uh some interesting shenanigans towards the end as we take a look at the number three adrian lostofsky i spoke to him he's got a new crew all the way from new york and it's his first time at weathertech raceway laguna seca as mike skiing is starting to kind of look at thomas merrill [Music] yeah we have a local caution here in turn one uh it saw someone smoking at the combine didn't catch who was but it looks like we got a little precaution here so it's something to keep an eye on i hope he's got an asteroid but yeah absolutely skein is on the charge uh merrell's mirrors are full and this is going to end up being a good race look for look for ski to make moving to eleven yeah yeah yes well good point yeah it seems like uh like thomas is not getting through turn 10 quite like he would like to and uh that's given the competitors behind him a run yeah looking high above the rainy curve and then turn 10 you can see the undulations of this track and how it dives downhill all the way down oh no doug peterson teammate of course the rapper matas of the team owner and that's been a big smash you said smoke and that was obviously happened at turn one but he's trying to crawl around let's hope he's not dropping any debris or uh fluid i don't think he is at this point but uh that's not a good scene no i heard from race control that that happened with doug peterson and tom sheehan got together in the front straight right in front of our man aaron colwell i think they have magnets you know on their cars it was i think tom sheehan told me at road atlanta i don't want anyone to think i don't like doug i love doc but our cars just come together and that's a shame to hear that that might happen michael fine i was just talking about him a little bit earlier west coast guy looks like he's having a mechanical issue this is an old cameron lawrence car i said i really recognize that front bumper yeah you would i've felt it on my back bumper a few times you're listening to adam and ready and ben sissel here with me in the commentary jonathan green as we look high above this fantastic circuit here beautiful day in april round three of the series ta2 in full flow 13 laps gone but now there's real damage being taken doug peterson has just gone out michelle albarte is out so it is fine michael fine is out of this race we're looking at michael self at the top of the court screw oh that is big damage full course caution we have our full course caution i believe for michael fine's car that's dead on track out there so um that that you know if they can get doug's car drivable again at least and get him out there for points um it's important when you have this mini now this is going to help a mosaic somebody else goes off this is huge for time oh that's michelle nagai michelle nagai was with us on the west coast series last year in a tata car she was with us last weekend at sonoma and here she is in a ta2 car so she she just wanted more people to race with so she switched to ta2 so we welcome michelle nagai oh right on well that's cool she did a heck of a nice dirt track move there getting out yeah hey listen while we're under caution ben you were at sonoma last week tell us what happened chris dyson and hamid al massoud winning in the ta but ta2 connor mosak and his teammate were on great form first time out it was a crazy show like you couldn't have scripted it better for tv i was doing the grid walk everything was fine as soon as they released the cars it started raining and then by the time i got up to my camera position it stopped raining so it's just enough to bring the oil out they're all on slicks chris dyson came in to get reigns they started the race and conor mosak and sam mayer just took off actually passing simon greg i was watching his in-car and it seemed like his abs actually slowed him down you know and the other guys just somehow powered through on slicks and then simon greg led the race for a long time and chris dyson had to basically come through the field then change back to slicks and come through the field again to win it was a crazy show and we had a great showing uh carl reidquist the number 47 who was our xg or sgt champion on the west coast last year got third place it was a it was it was a lot of fun to watch but one person i've never seen this side of sam mayer but i think he's maybe the most if or close to the most talented person in the ta2 field right now he's seventh but watching him he's just comfortably staying behind edward savage and i think maybe he's gonna let this race come to him this time usually he attacks but he didn't have a great starting position and i think we're gonna see something from sam mayer later on in the race this track is a tough track to pass on so when you're buried in the field like that it could be a bit of a challenge like doug's there you're looking awfully disappointed hate for his day to end like that uh just such a shame he's such a fierce competitor fun guy to be around yeah so jovial i mean you can if you're having a bad day go see doug peterson because uh that'll be that'll that'll end that but yeah uh sam mayer is an incredible talent i think laguna is one of those places uh that you labs here matter big time yeah and um you know you really have to there's there's so many places here that you can find little tidbits of time uh be knowing the track well and and given the fact that he doesn't know this track all that well it's amazing that he's doing what he's doing against the competitors that have all the laps here so it just does really speak to his talent but his positioning right now is not normal sam mayer well let's take a look at some action from previously at the corkscrew because we're under caution here conor mosak has been making some very interesting moves and uh a chance to see him and there oh there was the spin that was that guy excuse me yeah that was uh tracking though wow fantastic should get a sprint car let's go through uh let's go through the field so in first place right now we're under yellow is rafa matos followed by thomas merrill mike skeen in third conor mosak fourth and michael cell fifth and if you look at that that's kind of all of our big top teams you've got team slr you've got uh doug peterson a three-dimensional services group thomas merrill with mike cope mike skeen with stevens miller liquor molly connor like we talked about connor mosak team slr then we've got edward cevagen at sixth sam mayer tyler casera carl rydquist scott borchetta jim gallagher 11th he was our ta2 champion on the west coast last year followed by the 2019 ta2 champion west coast brad mcallister brand new to the series just started in ta2 but really fast he's that orange stripe car the white with the orange stripes jeff holden i've been very impressed with him the last two weeks he's really fast he's in 13th place tai young nick rocino in 15th place greg tolson cameron parsons tom clower drew neubauer tim lynn is 20th stephen lustig from new jersey is 21st michelle nagai 22nd ken twaits we know him from xgt and ta this is his first time in ta2 he's in 23rd dave kenickie 24th mitch marvasch robert acado jr doug peterson is now 27th followed by tom sheehan i think they had contact yeah adrian lostofsky sadly had to come into the pits i'm not sure what happened there michael fine keith prochuk barry bose and then michelle abadi yeah hopefully they've got michelle going again we just saw keith prochack leave the pit area so i don't know what kind of issue he had either but he was having a really good run uh it's unfortunate to see him you know the hp tuners car have his struggles there so i hate to see that for that adam let me ask you about kenthwaites because he has a champion in his own right in xgt but that's a production based car he's now done ta and now he's doing t82 how hard is all of the transition i love i love the fact that he's that into trans am racing right you know he's been a wonderful addition to the paddock i've known kent waits for quite a few years i've worked for his company uh you know performance dynamics international pdi and uh they're uh so he's a wonderful man to be around and um i know he's doing this ta2 race because he hadn't been here to laguna since 1986. oh wow quite a bit had changed obviously so uh so he went to get as much time around here as possible and uh you know i was trying to definitely talk about it running this hundred miles i was telling him he's gonna be tired for tomorrow but he was having none of it so um but you know i'm i'm really really happy he had some problems in the first practice up just past the corkscrew and it looks like he went off i don't know about cold tires but you know speaking of ken twaits also that he uh he wants to run the music city grand prix and that's a ta2 race with indy cars in august so he's just trying to get behind the wheels yeah yeah we both live in nashville that would be uh probably 15 20 minutes from his home he wants to have a good home showing and justin marks and scott borchetta who are with us this weekend in trans am scott in this race right there um they some of the owners of the race the music city so are we going to see adam andretti in a car at the music city grand prix of course you are i got to say i'm working on it you know i would i love the street races i love obviously ta2 racing so definitely working on it you've done really well in detroit in the past yeah so why not why not you know and i would love to be a part of that weekend it's gonna be a big weekend looks like uh michael fine it's the michael fine still trying to please it parked at the top of the corkscrew a lot of times uh so i've seen safety they'll release them like a soap box derby up there and tell them to coast in yeah so maybe he's going to say there is a runoff just just before uh just off the rainy they've cut tow ropes you know splitters will cut the tow rope on the bottom of the on the bottom of the the cord screw it'll pinch it and it'll cut it off so orbital rip splitter so they're doing that just uh they're well very well experienced here um the safety crews here are top notch this is a wonderful venue to come to because it's a year-round venue they they always have something going on here all year round and uh so there's they're well seasoned here let's just so to speak and you know these drone shots that we're getting i know we're somewhat near hollywood but that's not green screen that is how pretty this place is the surroundings of this place is unbelievable we're on the monterey peninsula up in the hills and it is beautiful here i've never been here this early in the year with everything so green but you can see those fabulous shots we're getting right there from up in the air and uh it's unbelievable real estate out here you're literally in a state park yeah yeah yeah i played a little golf at pebble beach with adam earlier in the week and uh you know i was about four shots ahead of him but we had some fun that's not saying much for my golf game buddy but to be four shots up on me he didn't go very far yeah 40 you've been looking good i've never seen anybody play with a baseball bat yeah right yeah that's that's the only way i know how you know caveman style that's it um but yeah they're everyone's keeping some heat in their car right now and making sure that they're staying nice and warm out there the track conditions are really good you know when this this plate doesn't have a lot of grip to begin with so when the sun beats down on it really just rips more of the grip away from it so with those sun on the track uh this is probably some of the most grip any of these cats have experienced here here's a question for you we've been talking you know we've been waxing rap sonic about the history of trans am and it's 55 year storied history i wonder if someone like roger pence could tune in now would believe given that he was involved in you know in in the early days of preparing cars for trans am we're going to see the hta cars out the historic trans i'm out but i it's just i it's almost as though this has got bigger and better as the years have gone on not less uh and it's it's i mean i i would have thought if mark donahue would would have tuned in and seen this i can't oh absolutely i don't think anytime you're in the moment i don't think any of those that that are living the moment realize what something is going to become you know they certainly don't don't have uh those kind of egos for that so um yeah this is it's it's you know here we are 50 plus years later and and still going very strong what an amazing car count this weekend i mean uh 33 uh connor mosak in the club no way oh wow yeah so he's gonna try to get out and just catch to the back of the pack there and i do have to give it up for my buddy now scott borchetta that should put him in the top ten at number nine he started 16th but he told me in the pits that he's going to find some speed and then looks like there's some damage to adrian lostofsky's front splitter there adam what do you think you call this earlier you said he could have some pebbles in there what why do you think they brought him in because he was in a chance for a podium here um he might have a puncture too ah you know you know the gravel he might have gone through a puncture they might have got a rock up in the bridge but just changing that one tire so maybe you're right the right side tires are what they're changing right now so he might have been feeling a vibration is what my guess would be or the car's handling uh went away so bad that he feel like he had a tire going down now he was able to still turn off like he was the 131s that he was cutting off with the tire going down kudos but i think there might be uh might be something else causing the vibration but you're gonna find out when he goes green here if he still has that vibration now that he's lost all this time they won't take any chances they'll just pull that in the park and now nick taylor is a sponsor right there that is the most comfortable men's underwear but i wonder if conor mosett going through the course we might have filled that underwear with something that was scary as research goes ben you are immaculate i don't know how you do it it's brilliant no wait way to plug that in wait a way to plug the sponsor and uh and you know give us a good laugh there ben for sure because yeah that's a scary moment up there when that was almost as an arty like you said yeah he overzenardi yeah he overzenarded and uh but that's that's okay i mean if that's the worst of your mistakes that you're gonna have here so be it and uh you know that's the thing about the courts group there's not another corner and a racetrack anywhere that you compare to uh so it's not like you say oh you know how you approach this this this that's a different there's there's nothing like it it's uh it's and you can't compare anything else to the court score you can't say oh yeah you're here we go let's go green and i don't think connor's even got out of the pit yeah he's going to make that now he's just going to get out that's going to but he's going to be at the back so we are racing again as we come out of 11 it's the restart rafa matos merrell scheme self now again remember i was saying how well merrill's car takes off in the first couple laps of a restart as opposed to the 88 yeah ooh mosaic's not gonna make it edwards of agent on the inside very very tight indeed what a what a pass look at that three-way wide with michael's self and slotting back passes and over self is coming right in front of the group so then a really interesting restart to that including sam mayer right in the thick of it and now he's side by side with michael self as they go into the left-hander and he makes that place up on edwards and they're side by side as they start to head up the hill and there's teammates tyler cassara michael self yep you know tyler is going to fight for his wife up there to stay on that lead lap i mean that's really what he's going to do he's young and he's a charger oh sam mayer off that's a scary boy it's a spot that yep yep yep turn six there is not a place you want to go off very fast uh it drops the world drops off there so a really good job of keeping it on the wall but rapper matos is all over the back of conor mosak yeah that could really affect the race well that could be the big switch up up front with thomas what he's looking for is is to be able to attack back on and he's got right there underneath and you can see this is really a nervous time for matos he doesn't need this right now because he's got a car in front of him that he's not racing and that's not your usual lap traffic because connor was pulling basically the same times as the lead when he was in fourth so he's going to be tough to get around yeah he just wants to stay on the same lap yeah you're exactly right and and you know this is a handling track and any little air disturbance too is gonna it's gonna not let rafa's car handle quite as well as it does in clean air so uh rafa's definitely sit back there and foil a little bit i'm sure that that he's gotta face that challenge well tyler cassera and karl rydquist have now come into the game as it were at the front sixth and seventh they are scott borchetta is definitely in the top ten he's up to eighth jim gallagher is in ninth position and sam mayer currently in tenth after that slight off what does tyler cassera know that we don't know he's got a windshield wiper on his car he saw these dark clouds yeah that was a good save by sam mayer tell you what he could have easily ended up in the tires there yeah oh man i tell you i think anybody else would have yeah there's there's not too many times that you would have kept that out of the barrier he did a heck of a job another dirt tracker in our midst here coming down the course through there really nicely by all those beautiful shots by our camera crew yeah our cameraman bob marley up there hey bob doing a fantastic job down into wayne rainey they're coming down here into turn 10. very good corner here here's where you can really separate and get that run down into 11. now all these cars seem to get through they're equally robbed again rafa comes from way back there all the time he's so confident there under the brakes does a fantastic job cuts the apex tight but is able to keep his speed up meryl's gone winning them and that's important because meryl needed to make sure that he got past as well so they can continue to pursue rapha matos their first and second now skeen's got work to do he'll try up the inside i think it's at this point now that conor has actually laughed down and the racer in him is going to be pretty lenient to the rest behind yeah not to mess up anyone else's race so since his race is over no sense another one else has been over yeah good point so the top three are cleanly through and it looks like edward savage in fourth position now trying to get past conor mosak as well but it's rafa matas in the 88 three-dimensional services car that leads this race from thomas merrill winner here in 2019 edwards of agent man i tell you that that little reset he got that last yellow has brought him back to life you know he's backed up in p4 he's looking very very strong where he's at and then he's start three start to mix it up he's gonna have the best seat in the house and that's only gonna bring him closer to that race wonderful drone shots looking up turn six towards the corkscrew an amazing way of looking at this racetrack that i've never seen before really really exciting to see and the big machine vodka car of edwards of asian doing the business at the moment and so too scott borchetta in the 48 version of the same car and uh both of them in the top ten at the moment yeah porsche's all the way up to p7 i haven't definitely the race of his ta2 career uh just sitting there right behind tyler casera just a one and a half second gap so he is right there in attack mode as well so we're getting to uh car number 18 coming back out of the pits we saw him go off earlier and there is scott borcher in that spike you love these colors don't you ben you i do i really do it really stands out as a videographer photographer and i've been so impressed with scott borchetta he was with us last weekend at sonoma really just to have fun and he did really well there and now he's doing great at laguna seca he is a west coaster he grew up in california and moved to nashville several years ago so he's happy to be back in his home state having a good showing yep yeah he's he's done a fantastic job his growth as a driver it shows how much he really cares about doing well in this paddock it means a lot to him and i make no bones about it i think the ta2 grid the depth of it uh i think indycar racing is the only one out there that has a tougher grid to go out there and face the eight comet has got such depth to it and the team did such a good job of bringing it every week that uh and you watch the on track product it's really so similar how good the racing is well it's a testament to the youngsters like connor most academia that they want to race in this because they are definitely destined to bigger and better as it were when it comes to nascar and this like i said is a great place to uh sort of learn learn their uh learn their craft of course and i think you know you're gonna see five ten years even down the road connor and sam will come back to anyone that is in trans am and tell them that you know these are the toughest years of their racing career was being out here in this grid because it's a tough tough paddock to win races in so sam mayer right behind scott borchetta they've been working together uh with scott lagasse and sky legacy junior racing and uh so right now i feel like sam mayer's just kind of hanging back probably watching his gauges as he ducks inside borchetta and now borcheva might follow him around locks up that front left got in a little bit deep and porchetta's gonna reattach right here something you gotta watch on there the andretti hairpin it'll suck you in yeah it goes off camber it's a tougher corner than it looks oh absolutely absolutely so we're getting to the halfway point of this race and it's been very dramatic so far and again just coming out of the pits a moment ago and he's back off again the 18th so whatever the problem was it's uh found itself again and unfortunately that should be just a local yellow they're gonna be able to pull them in there's an exit gate right there so uh he should be good the great thing about weathertech raceway laguna seca is there's a lot of places to pull your car off yeah and hopefully we don't have to go full course yellow there it looks like they got a gap there and the truck was already retrieving it so local yellow should be enough then i would agree for sure great great eye on that and here michelle the guy again show the dirt tracking skills well yeah like you say that sprint car in her future i can see it i called it hauled it right here you did so i think that we're gonna have a local caution but nothing more than that we won't have a safety car out again because here comes the leaders matos merrell at ski now starting to make in some inroads now as they pull away from the fourth place man yeah and connor mosak is just kind of in there between them not giving up his lap down plus fourth place and uh so edward savage has got to be getting pretty frustrated wondering when conor's gonna let him buy because that that gap is just opening up and getting bigger as we look at jim gallagher last year's ta2 champion on the west coast oh you make a mistake going in and you know that number 24 car that's dylan mcavon's old car that brad mcallister's driving right there yeah absolutely now you know we went door to door a lot dylan tonight we had some awesome battles and uh what a great driver he is and miss him around the paddock as well he was a wonderful face to see him and his dad every weekend week out was uh was always uh something i cherished you know from those late weekends so love to ever see them come back to the paddock anytime you know they're always welcome oh it's great always exciting and fantastic young talent so in ninth tenth and eleventh place is our first second and third in the west coast championship carl right quits in first jim gallagher in tenth and second and brad mcallister in 11th and third so that could be our podium for the west coast championship and they're showing us some real talent out there absolutely great just half an hour to go now 32 minutes to be exact as we are on board with the ford mustang afternoon under the bridge and up the hill he goes towards the ray hall straight that's my favorite livery in ta2 right now that rat fink looking uh side of the berryman yeah i love it i like what matos has done on the top there i was talking to him about it and uh he's put the american flag on the top there just as michelle did last year michelle obate and so that looks really good from above you know he knows the drones up there yeah new us citizen so he's proud of it he's playing it round nick rosino's got a flag on top i like this well it is trans am and the am is america so i like that i could tell you my dad you know he was not a natural-born citizen born in italy obviously and he always said the proudest moment of his life was certainly becoming an american citizen so uh congratulations to rafa on that and uh showing that proudly on the on the rooftop of his car as i see well he should it's a great great wonderful country so now that we're kind of spread out we're in lap 25 of 45 we got more than 30 minutes to go do you relax in a ta2 race or are you just trying to now feel the car and see what's going on you know there's no time for relaxing in these two year two races it's 100 sprint race so every lap is a qualifying lap pirelli builds a really good durable tire so you don't worry about over abusing the tire you know what you do worry about is overviews and the other usables like your brakes and things like that especially place here like laguna which can historically be tough on the brakes so um you just settle into a certain extent but it's more of a rhythm thing you don't really give up or relax it's really just finding that rhythm and and your flow if you will and and uh this place is great for that you know uh and do the cautions help or hurt you because i've heard from some drivers that sometimes driving a heavy car under caution can be more physical than anything else oh yeah no and it gets hot right these cars are hot already and then when you take all that air from moving around inside it's it's oh it just makes it it's like you're sitting in an oven look look for sam mayer to duck inside or outside of michael self here at the andretti turn and that's edward savage in there currently running fourth place there he is sam mayer around michael self i saw him coming down the straight a little bit faster good pass sam's on a mission his lap times are right there with what mike skin is running so he could you know if he was if he was up there it would uh so you know any other full force caution could really switch up this race by some way and that's all conor mossack is hoping for he's like get me back on the lead lap give me full course caution so we'll see what happens yeah absolutely you know he would he would love for that you know at this point probably not enough time left in the race to even climb back through this field uh to get back up but he would definitely salvage a better position than where he's at being a lap down but uh he is the first car uh one lap down so there is that and as you said we get deeper into this race a lot of traffic is gonna play a role in it look at scott borchetta coming around the hairpins great shots yeah the crew just here you guys all do a fantastic job bringing this trans am racing to the fans into the homes and uh you know it's a such a blessing to have this live streaming and oh michelle and she's parked up in the pit lane it looks like maybe her left front tire might be down yeah yeah she could have a down tire or it might just be the way that it settled into the pavement there but yeah it looks like either down tire or a broken front suspension part she could have uh from that contact earlier not been a good day at the office for michelle she loves coming here to laguna but uh that's not how she planned her day at all absolutely not no you're always gutted for that as a you know a fellow racer you don't ever want to see anybody having those struggles because you know how it feels if you haven't been there you haven't been racing long enough so the field's starting to spread out matos in control of this car uh of his car and in control of this race he's 1.5 seconds ahead of thomas merrill uh who was definitely one of the favorites here this weekend mike skeen chasing a win in third at the moment in edwards of agent going well in fourth place sam mayer's the man on the hunt at the moment putting in some very good lap times and getting past michael self in the last lap cacera is still there in seven for cheddar in eighth now the top three right now they've always they've displayed all weekend long wouldn't you agree ben that they've been kind of on another planet with themselves uh so this is kind of how we saw some of this playing out we were definitely thinking there was those intangibles with connor and sam and and edward that might be able to sneak in there uh being in that same group but these three have really kind of checked out shown that they're the class of the field out here today and it's uh it's looking good and i tell you who's bringing himself back into this is kind of reeling him back in his connor yeah he's not that far behind he's not in the race but you know he's if he's feeling froggy enough you'll see him he's he won't he won't sit back on anyone i don't think i've never seen this out of thomas merrill but you know he may be protecting the championship also because uh he's in the lead and uh he's he seems to be kind of letting the race come to him a little bit but it looks like we're going double yellow we have a double yellow yeah yeah you know thomas he's he's finding himself in a position i don't think he's found himself in his transit career yet that's point racing and uh you know if if you need to salvage if your bad day is the second or third or even a fifth um you know that's that's what you need to do you need to salvage those days he's not feeling like he's having his best day here today you know still podium in here today would be a huge thing for him um you know he's such a great talent you just hope that you know this is the place he expected to really dominate and uh don't let that affect him just you know roll over to the next event and keep keep up doing what you're doing down the corkscrew once again raphael matos merrell in pursuit and then scheme the car next is a lap down but there's surveying in fourth and here's the man we're keeping an eye on in that uh number eight of sam mayer this full course caution came perfect for sam yeah yeah yeah he got 17 laps left here uh he's got some time he's got some time and he was looking really good like i said his lap times are right there with schemes uh you put someone like i said with his talent right up on his rear bumper he's still he's got to get around edwards of agent yet and i believe they will give connor a waiver on right ben they should yeah he should be out of there i hope they do it soon so we await for the restart of this one as we take a closer look now at that number eight who's been definitely making some good stories yeah sam's sam's always one for you know for giving us some excitement giving us something to draw you know something to talk about and uh like he said for many years to come we're gonna be seeing him you know and big better things [Music] he's got edwards of age and that he's going to have to get around he's you'll have to deal with edward edwards been no slouch [Music] i was just making sure no one from doug peterson's crew is gonna throw a water bottle now i'm just teasing [Laughter] no they did uh it's a heck of a race a lot of attrition here what to be expected at laguna um is that you know this is common when you have this many cars to have a couple of full course cautions like we've had so not a surprise whatsoever and it's definitely going to give us some good you know i said at the beginning of this broadcast adam that this was an important race for both skeen and rafa matos and it's going to be proving that way matas start of the day 10 points behind thomas merrill he's going to beat him on the road but only just but that will narrow the gap between the pair of them petrel is not a factor given that he's not here this weekend and he will lose that second place and matas will move up to second absolutely amato's gain an extra point by being one qualified position ahead of him on that and skiing gained two points on on uh on him by doing that so um there there is that little bit of a swing too so i know mike skeen's definitely looking to um get around thomas to try and really put a dent in that so we are under caution again our third portion of the day adam andretti ben jonathan green we're sending ben now to go and get the interviews for the end of the race because it's coming up quickly i think this is going to be a time grace we're not going to get the full 45 in with just 23 minutes to go but it's matas merrill skeen of texas and sam mayer the young gun in fifth place then in six is michael self further down gallagher holden racino west coast specialist you can see the w means the west coast championship parsons is up there in 16th position we've been on board with norway drew norway in a uh newport norway excuse me in 18th position and that guy as you know has had her problems as has michelle abate who it looks as though has now retired from this race yeah a lot of a lot of retirements here you know there's been like i said some decent decent attrition so a lot a lot of drivers taking advantage of that ken twaits is into the top 20. he's 19th and um and he keeps on getting a little bit quicker and quicker and right now he's right there at the same lap times of those that are around him so there's a few positions that could be gained there so there's a really good race there from like 16th to 20th as well and uh so there's there's going to be a lot of good racing coming on this restart all the way through the pack there john yeah there's another trick of the tale potentially in this race uh we might have a surprise before too long because you know that matos uh is a good restarter and there's no question that his overtake into the lead was without doubt one of the best moves of the day uh thomas merrill is a mean terrier when it comes to a fight for the win tires are going off um can you describe just how the car feels now compared to when you started because fuel loads down tires are starting to go off it's hot as you mentioned um how does that affect the feel of the car you know something you know depending on on what uh you know how how you were set up over over the long haul but really honestly for me um as the fuel burns off the cars always start to feel a little bit better uh they will start to get a little bit more sliding around we have sun on the track now so yeah now the grip levels definitely change so you may see the way some of these cars handle differently i'm again anxious to see like i've seen it every restart uh rafa's car just does not get up and go as quick as thomas does but rafa's car over the longer run it gets up and go and and makes it happen so uh still another lap under caution it looks like we're going to have here and if you're meryl do you go for it at that andretti curve at the restart or do you bide your time for a bit um well you got to go when the opportunities there if the opportunity presents itself with the andretti hairpin down there into turn two absolutely you got you gotta go for the attack um but yeah if wherever the opportunity presents itself right now that's probably if i was thomas that's where my head would be at that's where i'm guessing his head is at is he's looking for that opportunity and then when he sees that opportunity he will pounce and he'll pounce like a tiger well you just saw a quick glimpse of our man best sister down there in the pit lane and while we're still under caution let's head down to ben and find out what's going on in the pit lane thank you ben we are down at the pit lanes first i want to talk to jeff holley silver hair racing he's the crew chief of michael self and tyler cassara you guys have had kind of rough luck to the start of the season but things seem to be going pretty well for you yeah we had a little bad luck to begin with the first two races uh the main plan this weekend was to first finish and make gains on it every practice session and we feel like we got some decent hot rods so it's been a good weekend how do you guys sound on the radio are they relaxed or are you having to talk them and coach them through some things they're dialed in pretty good right now uh they're a little free but i think everybody is so uh it's gonna be who who can hold it on the track and finish nice jeff holly silverhair racing maurice hall we miss you out here buddy but silverhair racing is doing pretty good back to you jonathan and adam great stuff ben thank you yes uh it's great to be able to have that utility where we can send him down there and get some stories for us because uh you know uh it just adds to the you know to hear what the drivers are saying whether they're relaxed whether they're not it's always good to get the insight from you but to hear it from the engineer and what they're actually saying on the radio to each other and how they're feeling and i think you summed it up nicely there it's all systems go for the that team there at the moment yeah ben sizzle the hardest worker man on the weekend out here i'm sure he's got a doppelganger or a twin brother somewhere you could see him absolutely anywhere at any time he's always got a smile on his face hidden behind that mask of his so um but yeah absolutely it backs up exactly what i was assuming was going on out there not a lot of grip that's why everyone is free um i just heard that uh ben ben i think just listen to you because he's now gone rushed over and got scott lagasse so let's go back down yeah great to ben cecil ben what's going on [Music] all right here i am now with team principal of team slr scott lagasse junior you've got connor mosak sam mayer and also scott borchetta how you feeling about this race so far we've had a we've had a tough start to this thing uh connor had to lock his tires down to keep from getting into another car and and we had a pit so he's now lapped down but fast uh sam got shuffled and is on his way back to the front i'm just afraid we just heard it's gonna be a time limit race that may hurt our chances there and then scott you know got mired way back there and is hauling ass right now and heading to the front so this is um i'm proud of what our guys are doing right now just a little bit wishing we had a little smoother start to it you know so do you wish you were out there right now racing are you having fun just coaching your guys um i do wish i was out there that's always where you want to be but but i say that i've found a new new joy and a new passion here and and it's fun when you're working with you know three or four guys like that that are good we've got jeff holden here this is west coast guy that's first first race here he's flying too i think in the top 10 now so it's fun for me i'm finding a new enjoyment and and pulling the reins back really on these guys they're all good and they all work hard so we just have to not make mistakes nice i love it scott legacy jr out there jonathan adam back to you buddies perfect timing ben great insight as always and scott lagasse got some juggling with those two young bucks on his hands but he's the perfect guy yeah he's been there done that got the t-shirt and he and they will listen to him oh absolutely no he's i'm so glad to hear that he found that passion in that because he's very good at it he's very good at coaching these young kids and he's not only coached him on track he's coached him off track uh some of the behavioral things that you need to have yeah yeah and the you know the way that political politics run but the pace car is off here we go yep pace car comes in and we are going to be racing again we got 16 minutes and 45 seconds as rafa matos leads them away thomas merrill desperate to win at home and could be having an opportunity here at the first call of the enter any curve but he's not close enough he's going to try high and wide rafa defends and literally blocks him from making any progress and rafa holds the lead through that first turn and that's a good restart by the brazilian come american yeah he got a little bit of wheel spin rafa did on the on the coming out of 11 to get the green and that gave that game just that bit of a run to casser to excuse me thomas merrill and that's why that almost happened there but now that ralph has got a couple corners and heat the tires he's picking up right where he left off before this caution yeah talking of runs it looks like sam mayer is trying to make a go at getting past edwards of asian there he is in the white and black behind the big machine vodka number 38 savage defends as they go back up the hill now under racing conditions and down towards the uh or up towards the ray hall straight now mayer all over the back of him gotta have a chance at the corkscrew but can't screw it up so to speak um but he might let's see if he goes for it yeah it was very edward was very defensive up there like he like you will be you play that that's that's a nice little fly coming down the hill there bye sam nicely done that shows that driver skill merrell right on the back bumper this is good this is really good because meryl's closest than he's ever been in this race to matos matos remember overtook him into this turn 11. it's not going to happen for merrell this time but skeen's now starting to show as well i just saw right there why matos is so fast in the turn 11. he gets through turn 10 better than any other right he made it through turn 10 merrell was right on his back up for getting into ten and and uh rafa just smoked it through turn 10. well in one of the articles uh in the weekend merrill was describing the fact that he thinks that he has the advantage here at laguna yes it's his home circuit but he really believes that the the exit of the corkscrew and down the rainy curves to 10 and 11 is really where he shines and i do think mystically that's a place where you can gain a lot of time um if you play it right it's a it's a funny uh combination of corners but uh if you do it right and you're on the right line and the right uh pressure on the gauge as it were you can get it faster than others i agree i mean i was watching it yesterday even in the ta practice so that's you know where when chris dyson went to another planet uh that's what he was doing just so much uh crazier than everyone else up there was that the course group he was definitely attacking it and getting through it and down raining better than anyone else so we are getting down to the tick tock time 14 minutes to go we've had plenty of drama to talk off and uh there's gonna be more i think there's gonna be one more twist to this don't you oh yeah i thought this isn't over yet no this isn't over yet and uh cautions precautions although we got away with that one pretty clean and but uh right here these these top three are right on top of each other and i just saw that adrian lostowski's just joined us what's going on my friend uh we uh we lost a brakemaster cylinder most likely um going into the corkscrew so we uh oh well we might have plenty of time to talk about this in a moment stephen lustig's just gone wrong but you're listening to adrian lastowski who uh was just out there and uh he's just about to tell us tell us again start again because we have that moment with lusting yeah we uh most likely lost a break master cylinder um going into the corkscrew i went through the dirt damage the splitter tried making my way back to uh pit lane and uh we uh actually doing pay speed i actually uh went off again almost got stuck in the gravel there and uh just slowly made it down pit road you know there's something going on with the brakes one of the massive cylinders must have went we were talking about ken twight's making his transition uh to this sort of racing how are you enjoying oh i love it i love it i feel like we have a lot of speed i feel like we had a sixth place car today seventh place car um you know we just we just got to get all the bugs worked out you know i think it's always like that when you have a new car a new team the class and stuff like that but once we get it all figured out we'll definitely be running up front well we've got 12 minutes to go adam andretti adrian lostofsky what's your thoughts on how this is going to panic matos hold them off i think it you know he's looking strong and he's looking like i said one of the key passing zones here's turn 11. i don't see anyone getting through turn 10 as well as he is um you know he's just really ripping it through there and and i mean even there you could physically see a little bit of gap from the apex to the exit championship gear choice what's he doing who knows who knows who knows um you know they may they may have gone with a different gear choice it may just be his driving it may be that that's where he focused on the weekend knowing how he's how many races he's run here laguna known where he needed to be strong and things like that but adrian how's the grip levels out there today um actually it's much better than the first day we're here um first day we were here track was very slick um now i feel like it's very good i don't know if it's the cooler air or there's less sand on the track but it felt much better well mike skeen obviously wants to get his championship back going again he started brilliantly in sebring as he always does uh but uh he is down in the points to the man in front of him thomas merrill who leads the championship coming into round three and we'll continue to do so and thomas is just hanging on to that mike cope car right now that thing is sliding around you see that yeah coming out of three yes he has uh i think he ran 10 laps of qualifying and i think rafa ran five laps in qualifying so he does have five more laps on his tires that's a good point yeah that's a big difference skiing looking for a way past merrell for a moment then right behind them sam mayor this is getting very tasty 11 minutes to go and you could throw a blanket over the chasing pack here we go and ski squeezes through and the corkscrew will have a taste of that wine because he just uncorked that one wow what a what a beautiful move what a beautiful move there and like i said you know right off my skin at your own peril right i mean here he is p2 he got 10 minutes left in this race now that's a timed race i wouldn't i wouldn't put it past mike to close this gap up and make this a race really good stuff by mike skeen and now we'll see if he can get any quicker as he heads up the straight to joe in pursuit now of rafa mata skiing up to second merrell now third savage and looking for that elusive podium and he's still very much on for it look at him right there and likewise sam mayer yeah sam sam still sitting there working with edward savage and edward's done a heck of a job at holding off uh sam you know that's a really good run for edward i know like this would really put his whole weekend together i know he really wants one more spot to be up on that podium uh but i know that he would feel like that fourth place to him would almost feel as good i said it earlier adrian uh rafa needs this one he's not had the perfect start to the year and he's a confidence driver if he can get this one under his belt the championship is well on for him definitely and the confidence coming out of a win carrying that momentum to the next race really uh it's unbeatable um just for the whole team for the driver everyone yeah for sure i mean when you ride the highs of of this sport like that and uh you're right the whole group gets to do it you know and your biggest fans are those that are spinning the wrenches for you so uh you know it's a whole group effort to win these things and like we were saying before it's one of the most competitive paddocks out there in all professional motorsports so uh to win race at this level is a big deal and and i know rafa feels that way you know ralph was one on every level and and he knows that with a challenge ta2 is and that's why he's found a home here is he loves that challenge yeah and he's had an interesting few years he bounced into the three-dimensional services team in 2018 got his uh first win at rhode atlanta went on to take the championship then joined the silver hair team and didn't have the best of starts for the season got better as the season went on it was a new team so that makes sense but now he's rejoined doug peterson and i think he was expecting or the team were hoping that he would just go back into the stride that he had in 2018 it's never that easy though but um this could be a pivotal moment uh weekend for him for sure and he almost did right other than merrell spoiling him yeah you know at sebring he had a great sebring race and and you know just very similar to what this is looking like you know he kind of checked out and looked like he had to race at hand and late raised caution brought it back together and we went green white checker and and thomas took advantage of it and was able to get around him there in 17 at sebring but he looks informed today his restarts have been brilliant and uh luke luna is a much tougher place to pass adrian yeah very difficult place to pass and with rafa going back to rafa he has really good qualifying every every race weekend and sometimes when you don't have the finishes um uh to go with that it gets very frustrating so he must feel really well good right now running in first always qualifies well so he needs a win for his team i mean i think it'll pick up his momentum there and morale and this will be good for the team doug peterson crashing out early on of the race big disappointment for him so he'll be watching on the sidelines now as rapha comes into 11 with seven and a half minutes to go skein will keep him honest and now sam mayer and the 28 all over so excuse me um conor moses excuse me yeah that's kind of it it's confusing me well like i said thomas looks like he drove the rear off the car there's there's no rear tires i don't want to say he drove the rear off uh it's not necessarily him but it looks like there's just no more rear grip left in that car he's sliding around all right he's a mess yeah he can't get that power down and and here we go connor's gonna connor's gonna go get a lot back off of him yeah yeah he's struggling in the yeah he can't get the power down that's really kicking the back end out on him so time running out and this is gonna be an emotional win for rafa matos if he can do it because i spoke to him earlier in the weekend he's got a cousin that he lost uh mariana uh on the side of the car so he'll be i'm sure either dedicating it to her or at least remembering her from uh this weekend because it was a new ad to his car this weekend and so he wanted to go out and win for sure and uh he's done everything right we thought he got pole position yesterday uh and he just got picked on the very last lap by mike skeen who hasn't been as competitive in race trim perhaps as rapper matos who did a brilliant move to take the lead and uh now time running out yeah he um he's definitely driving with that heavy heart he's driving inspired and you can see it you know you could definitely see it in his forum throughout the weekend i know he really wanted that poll and gotten it from him but he is he's driving a flawless race to say that my skiing is gaining a little bit of time you know my skin is now right there within two seconds you know so he's closed that gap up about a tenth or tenth and a half good battle also between edwards of agent and sam mayer got confused with conor mosak of course a lot down but uh mayor all over the back of savage and gallagher going off on the madison car number 16 that's the second time he's had problems today remember how we said one more caution yes oh boy uh-oh scott ball shatters had a good run currently in eighth position just ahead of brad mcallister he's chasing down michael self and he's got a chance of overtaking him with five minutes to go in the spiked 48. yeah he's looking really good corchetta is really strong here at the end here and looks like he's poised for the attack on the michael self beautiful sing player car love that livery too that's such a such a sharp looking car and really do a nice job don't miss it no you cannot well that's gotta get popped up as we take a look up the uh ray hall straight he's definitely not in the most dangerous position he is inside of the track on the inside uh there's really um you know i don't see race control overreacting on this one with less than five minutes to go you know i don't think merrell's gonna be bothered about uh conor getting in the way because he's got a solid third place regardless of the car slipping and sliding underneath him here's that battle i'm interested in it's just on how sam mayer could possibly make a move on edward survey let's see if he does something here coming into the final corner i look like he was sizing up for eleven yeah he did didn't it yeah well we'll soon find out here we go uh no didn't quite do it but he's got another chance this is uh a great battle here for fourth position yeah it is boy and i would it it would be bittersweet right for edward to be running forth for almost every night haven't qualified for it yeah a really really well nice run for him today no matter what the outcome is hold his head high on on the on the company he kept all day and and the race that he ran in the weekend he put together it was just really a whole weekend and you know adrian is it's so important not only to have a great race but to put the weekend together you know carry momentum from session to session yeah definitely you don't want to you know if you do well in practice you do well in qualifying you do well in a race you had a good solid week and you go back happy you know like us right now we you know our hog performance camaro was doing so well you know first practice we did a little bit of work we kept getting faster we kept getting faster we qualified ninth and uh we felt like we had a six-place car this weekend and we're like wow this is one of the best cars we've ever had and we don't even know the track here in california laguna seca so we were we're excited and i told the team we're gonna we're gonna save a lot of the car for the last ten laps i'm gonna just take it easy stay on tail end not not be too aggressive and uh you know it's frustrating still we don't get to finish um the race you know so it's frustrating yeah i hate it for you as a racer you know that right you know it guts you when uh you put it all in there and then uh you know the mechanical failures are the hard ones to swallow and uh but uh you'll bounce back from it you guys will be stronger in the long run from it and we all know that and looking forward to your next time out again all of us and adrian i don't know who you did who did your design but it pings on tv you can really see that car i was up on the hill yesterday and i was watching you qualify practice and i was like wow you can really read the whole thing and see it looks great yeah that's a hog performance uh john butler taylor allen those guys um those guys designed the whole design and we just fine-tuned it a little bit and came out with a really good uh livery there someone just uh you know lit a fire underneath rafa yes he cut off uh i think he was listening to your commentary he cut off a 139 i'm a 130.9 i haven't seen anyone in the 130s since early on in this race so he's definitely putting down the qualifying laps right now adrian uh that's gonna be tough to beat if he keeps that up because mike skeen tried to answer the call put out the fastest lap of his recent laps and was still three tenths off of what rafa was able to pull off so rafa is in a zone here yeah no question like you said jonathan driving inspired he wants to really get this one bring it home for his family and uh you know and and have that beautiful tribute and like i said you know i said this was going to be an important weekend for both skeen and matas and it's proved that way cause scheme won't be disappointed with second place he's struggled by his standards throughout most of this race he didn't get the perfect start he was struggling to stay in third and even at the restarts he wasn't the fastest restarter and to see him there in second place and comfortably so uh he's going to be pleased with that his car obviously going off as well well they know the points leaders in third and that's that's the biggest thing right and they know that that points leaders in third and that they made those gains and and rafa almost maximized points right because he's going to lead the most laps today and he's going to you know he only think the only point he didn't get was for the pole here's one lap to go find a lap final and the question is can mayor get past of agent will rafa matas hold on and do the perfect job here at uh raceway that is laguna seca the weathertech raceway laguna seca i should say but matas has done a immaculate performance he could have been pole position he wanted those points didn't get them but now he's beaten skiing on the road he's put in a championship drive for sure i mean really really happy for him he's not put a wheel wrong i mean look at all the roadies using there i mean not an inch left of that road uh on this racetrack that's showing confidence and if you're doing that at the end of the race um that that's oozing confidence and uh he is checked out and he is still laying down the lap to come to that checkered flag yeah he definitely got into a rhythm there at the end the last 10 laps now it's been a perfect rhythm and when you get through that rhythm and you know um that you get to a rhythm where you're just driving perfectly turn by turn by turn and a lot of times show and you're actually not using up as much tire and you have a lot left at the end there you go here we go then one more corner to go for rafa matos the brazilian american he's got the american flag on the top on the top of the car and he'll celebrate with that flag because it's a touch of matas magic in monterrey as he comes towards the checkered flag and takes it in style here in california matos wins his first race of the season and moves to second overall in the championship you

Channel: TheTransAmSeries

Views: 11,677

Rating: 4.9581881 out of 5

Keywords: Trans Am, motorsports, racing, wreck, crash

Id: MowURUBf1J0

Length: 76min 36sec (4596 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021