From Brake Failure to the Front Row

A Scary Start

What a week! We went from a damaged race car to qualifying on the front row and finishing sixth in the National Championship race. Everything was insane!

This season has been full of challenges, but heading into The SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Road America, I was determined to finish the year on a high note.

NOT EXACTLY THE START WE PLANNED

We arrived at Road America with a freshly rebuilt front end on the car and were looking forward to getting on track. But that all came to a halt. During practice, I suffered a brake failure heading into Turn 1, sending me into the barriers in a massive 9.1G impact. The crash destroyed the front end of the car, leaving it unusable for the rest of the week. After everything we'd been through this season, it was hard to believe we were facing another major setback.

A BACKUP PLAN

With my car out of commission, it looked like my Runoffs might be over before it really began.

Fortunately, our friend Michael Borden wasn't racing that weekend, and we were able to arrange to use his Spec MX-5.

Suddenly, we had a chance to get back on track. Of course, jumping into an unfamiliar car at the National Championship wasn't exactly the plan, but I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity.

RAIN, QUALIFYING, AND A FRONT-ROW START

Qualifying brought another challenge: rain. Between the changing track conditions and getting comfortable in a different car, there was a lot to figure out. But we kept working at it, and when it counted, I managed to put together a lap of 2:36.689, good enough for P2 and a front-row starting position. After everything that had happened, qualifying second in a borrowed car was pretty incredible.

RACE DAY

Starting P2 put me on the outside for both Turn 1 and Turn 3 at Road America, one of the trickiest places to be on the opening lap. I knew the priority was to stay clean and get through those first two corners. Unfortunately, the outside row, which I was leading, didn't get a great push at the start, and I dropped to third.

I held third for the first few laps but struggled to adapt to the car's understeer through the Carousel and Turn 14. Every lap, I knew I was losing a chunk of time there, and soon cars from behind started pushing past me. I fell to sixth but didn't lose hope, knowing there was still a lot of race distance ahead.

Once I figured out how to keep the car happy through Turn 14, I started putting down faster laps. The Carousel was still costing me time, but I was so fast through the Kink right after it that I could make up the difference and stay with the front pack.

Battling at the front of the field was a lot of fun. For the first time, I got to experience the effect of side drafting while going wheel to wheel with Jarrett Jones up the main straight.

Side drafting is an aerodynamic effect that happens when you're trying to pass another car while running closely alongside it. The airflow creates an area of reduced wind resistance that can help you gain speed. But positioning is everything. Get it just right, and you gain an advantage. Get it wrong, and you can actually help the car you're trying to pass. Over the course of the front straight, I could feel my car pull ahead, fall back, and then pull ahead again, all because of this effect.

Although I couldn't turn that front-row start into a podium finish, the pace was there. I recorded the second-fastest lap of the race, proving we had the speed to run with the leaders, and ultimately crossed the finish line in sixth.

Was I happy with sixth? Not really. I came to Road America to win, and knowing we had the pace made the result even more frustrating. But that's racing. Sometimes the speed is there, and the result just doesn't reflect it.

Looking back, it's pretty crazy to think about everything that happened that week. We went from a 9.1G crash and a damaged race car to qualifying on the front row in a borrowed car and setting the second-fastest lap in the race. 

THANK YOU!

A huge thank-you to Michael Borden for trusting me with his car, going out of his way to bring it to the track, and giving me the opportunity to compete after my crash. Without his help, my Runoffs would have ended before the race even started.

I'm also incredibly grateful to Wheels America Racing, Mazda Motorsports, McQueen Racing, GPX Stream, V Box and all my other partners for their continued support. And, of course, a huge thank-you to my parents for everything they do to make this possible.

THE YEAR THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BREAK ME

This race marks the end of both my 2026 racing season and my time in Spec MX-5. 2026 was not the year I was hoping for results-wise, and almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. But the biggest thing I gained was mental resilience.

This season was supposed to break me. It was supposed to make me quit, and yet I kept coming back. My skin thickened, I got stronger, I learned to drive better, and my desire to keep racing is stronger than ever.

Now it's time for the next stage in my journey!