HARRISON: All Hands on Deck

A race team is a family. We spend a lot of time together, both working hard and enjoying long days at the race track.

But until you’re a part of a program that truly works as a family, you underestimate the amount of effort that a team will go through when they’re tasked to rebuild a race car in less than 24 hours.

Our Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season has been anything but smooth sailing from the start, but our team has quickly become the ones to watch and respect in the paddock as we’ve conquered every challenge thrown our way.

At VIR, we found that our racing family is even bigger and just as dedicated to supporting one another.

During the first race on Saturday, I had the No. 93 Harrison Contracting Company Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 up to P2 in class and was making a pass to P1 when contact from another competitor sent me off track.

After recollecting the car, I merged back on track and found myself in the back of the Pro-Am field. A few corners later, my luck got even worse. One car dropped a wheel at the Uphill Esses and while everyone was trying to avoid the car, some of us got collected in it, including me.

Even though both situations were out of my control, the team and Mario did not deserve that outcome. We had the car to win that day.

Before I even made it back to the garage (shoutout to the corner workers and medical staff at VIR and SRO!), Racers Edge and HPD had already gone to work.

Jon Mirachi (team principal of Racers Edge), HPD, our friends at RealTime Racing and Travis Houge (WTR) were all on the phone working to rebuild our Acura NSX GT3.

Everyone was full steam ahead to get us back on the grid for Sunday’s race. I was in shock; the entire scene gave me goosebumps.

Jim (our engineer) and Nick (our car chief) immediately started assessing the damage, pulling off body work and getting her up on jacks so the crew could dig in.

The entire Racers Edge crew were all hands-on deck the second the car rolled off the flat bed. Erin (our social media manager) headed off to Rick Ware Racing in Mooresville to meet up with some of our Acura family for their assistance.

Over six hours of driving in a mini van full of NSX body work and parts. HPD was also pulling the essential parts off their support trailer.

No one hesitated. The Racers Edge team never even questioned if we were going to be able to get the NSX running for the race on Sunday, because we 100 percent were.

We all had to commit to going full throttle to make that goal happen, and we did. The final parts we needed to button her up arrived at 10:15 p.m. on Saturday and the crew was ready to fire up the engine before the track’s noise deadline of 11 p.m..

Up until the very last minute, when we rolled to pre-grid for Race 2, the guys were polishing up the final details and finishing the decals on our new shiny carbon black hood – thanks Rick Ware Racing!

My team is incredible. They worked so, so hard and I could not be prouder of them! Mario and I arrived at the track with a fully rebuilt race car that was starting on the overall Pole position that day.

Mario started on pole and lead an incredible stint before bringing me the car in the overall lead. We had the fastest pitstop and super quick out of pit lane which put us back in the overall lead for Pro and Pro-Am.

Can you believe it?! We had a mangled race car less than 24 hours ago and were currently leading the race overall. The entire Racers Edge team should be so proud.

We led the race up until seven minutes to the checkers. I entered the last corner too quickly, dropped a wheel and spun the car.

Gutted, heartbroken, disappointed, embarrassed. Just a few words to describe the feeling of going from first to nearly last.

After getting the car fired back up, I had one goal: charge forward. I made one final pass on the last lap, and we came home P5. Unfortunately, VIR really hurt us in the championship battle but we’re not out. The entire Racers Edge team can’t be counted out.

What I’ve learned the season and from VIR is this:

I made a mistake that cost my team, my co-driver, and my sponsor the win.

Once I got home and had time to reflect and regroup for my other racing program that following weekend, I was reminded that this is supposed to be hard; physically and mentally.

The team and drivers in the paddock that handle hard well, are the successful ones. The respected ones.

When it gets hard and I get discouraged, I’m reminded that it’s supposed to be hard and that’s how we grow. Every race weekend as an HPD Junior Driver and part of the Racers Edge team with Mario, I grow. I made a mistake that cost my team the biggest THANK YOU that Mario and I could have given them, which would’ve been that win on Sunday.

I plan to make up for that every race moving forward in our Acura NSX GT3 Evo22. Watkins Glen is July 23-24. The team is ready. I’m ready. We are coming for redemption.