Brainerd, MN - July 14, 2020 - It's not called Trans Am for nothing! Trans America by name, and Trans America in actuality. An extraordinary effort by the New York based F.A.S.T. Auto Racing Team enabled Brainerd rookie Adrian Wlostowski to score a highly improbable but hugely creditable podium runner up spot in the Super GT Class on a weekend of dedication, commitment and attrition.
Round 3 of the 2020 Trans Am presented by Pirelli Championship season at Brainerd International Raceway began with a bang for Adrian, but sadly of the wrong kind. Early on in testing he suffered an engine failure, snapping the crankshaft at the harmonic balancer, something that meant his competition car was out of action for the weekend. That could have resulted an early finish for the Big Apple ace as there was no spare parts solution available, but the F.A.S.T. team are dedicated professionals who proved tough as teak and were determined to score all important Championship points at Donnybrook. The only solution was to bring a reserve car all the way from New York, an epic journey of over 1,300 miles - which they did.
F.A.S.T Auto Racing adapted the replacement SCCA T1-LP Chevrolet Corvette to SGT specs early Sunday morning. Topping it off with a set of Pirelli tires that barely fit the wheels and car - all the hard work paid off handsomely. Although running without a cooling system and a clutch slave cylinder that was on its way out, Adrian skillfully guided the Corvette into the runner up spot, matching his career best result in the Mustang at Mid Ohio the last day. To cap an extraordinary weekend, the New Yorker also copped the CoolShirt “Cool Move of the Race Award.”
Adrian had predicted that the Corvette, 200lb too heavy for the SGT class, would be much slower than the Mustang he was forced to abandon. He was also concerned about fuel capacity in the Corvette but neither of those factors appeared to affect the outcome and he was absolutely buzzing when he got out of the car. He told our reporter how the race unfolded, “In the first and second laps, I'm keeping up with our class in this car, which isn't meant to happen, and I'm like wow! Then the clutch pedal started going away. The clutch was a little iffy at the shop but we had very limited time restraints and we were here to race!"
He went on, "I was keeping up with the front runners until the clutch completely went out. Third and fourth [gears] were all we had, and I was doing whatever I could do. Then, Aaron Pierce overheated, he pulled in at three quarters of the race. We took second. Once my crew chief Eric told me we'd done fifty percent of the race and I could go like hell, I was doing faster times at the end of the race than at the beginning with no clutch. Unbelievable!"
This was a weekend that will be long remembered by Adrian and his team, and the back-up support he received was at the front of his mind when he added, "The driver always gets all the credit, but really it's everybody else. We all did this. This really was a team effort. There were twenty guys involved in this. They really went above and beyond to make this happen. They did a Smokey and the Bandit run from New York to here in 24 hours with this car and we got it prepped, the whole weekend was unbelievable. Let's win one though!" When asked to describe the weekend in one word he added, "Nuts!"
Adrian finished thanking his sponsors, "Thanks to Hawk for great brakes on our Mustang and the Corvette, and thanks to Forgeline for the super lightweight wheels. These guys really help us out here with what we accomplish racing in Trans Am."
The extremely hard-won points Adrian picked up at Brainerd keep him in second place in the Super GT Class, while he will get the next chance to win one at Road America August 6-8.
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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.