New York, NY - July 1, 2020 - Saturday's Trans Am race at Mid Ohio was undoubtedly exciting to watch, with cars leaving the asphalt at regular intervals due to the wet nature of the track, but that didn't stop New York ace Adrian Wlostowski in the No. 96 F.A.S.T. Auto Racing Ford Mustang from registering a second podium of the season in the Super GT Class with a fine and highly skillful drive in very difficult conditions to a career best second place finish in the Series.
Even regular rain showers on Friday and Saturday couldn't dampen the enthusiasm of everyone in the Trans Am community, as all were thrilled to witness the resumption of muscle car racing. Mid Ohio Sportscar Course provided a great venue for the first competitive action in the 2020 Trans Am presented by Pirelli Championship season since Sebring back at the end of February and F.A.S.T., the Big Apple team representing their own high performance auto shop along with Hawk Performance and Forgeline Wheels, took full advantage of the trip to the Midwest.
Adrian's distinctive black Ford Mustang was one of six cars in the Super GT class to make the trip out to Ohio and there was a special atmosphere in the paddock as the event took shape with all participants thrilled to be back on track again and there were even some spectators present to share in the occasion.
Adrian was fast off the trailer in Friday's early sessions, registering 1:30:953 on lap 12 of the testing session. He improved on that to 1:30:031 to be the fastest man in his class in Friday's official practice, but official qualifying later that same afternoon indicates just how much track conditions had changed when the rain came.
The weather system in the area had presented a whole array of challenging circumstances with more rain before the race Saturday lunchtime. The race itself thus started on a wet and slippery track making the twisting circuit hazardous in the extreme. With the GT, Super GT and Xtreme GT cars sharing the track with the Trans Am cars, it meant 25 high performance vehicles all searching for the best racing line on the rain sodden surface. There were skids aplenty from highly experienced drivers, which made Adrian's stylish progress all the more impressive as he guided the Mustang home behind only Mark Brummond's BMW M4 for podium P2 in class, an improvement of one place over the Sebring result.
"I'm happy that we're not going to win the record for the most third place trophies in the Series. We finished second, it's a step up and just one more place to go. We keep working hard to make the racecar better, we keep getting better and while there's always room for improvement, we're happy I'm not going to win the trophy for the most third place finishes in Trans Am," declared Adrian.
When asked about how the weekend matched up to his plans Adrian added, "What we did here was we came with one plan off the trailer. We were fastest in practice when it was dry with that plan. And then it rained, and we started doing everything differently then we planned! We started getting more and more speed as the track dried out. Still it was a great result."
A positive weekend for the New York outfit, who continue to make a tremendous impression both on and off the track. Their thanks are extended to Mid Ohio Sportscar Course, Trans Am and the great state of Ohio for making the weekend possible and it's fingers crossed all round that the trip to Brainerd next month goes ahead as planned in this most challenging of years.
F.A.S.T. Auto Racing's website is here http://fastautoracing.com/ for more information on the team, news and photo gallery. Stay up to date on social media following F.A.S.T. on Instagram @fastautoracing.
Full replays of the race can be found by downloading the Trans Am by Pirelli app for free:
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nagra.ion.transam&hl=en_US
Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/trans-am-by-pirelli-racing/id1494720210
F.A.S.T. Auto Racing can be found on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
F.A.S.T. Auto Racing: fastautoracing.com
Trans Am Series: gotransam.com
Forgeline Wheels: forgeline.com
Hawk Performance: hawkperformance.com