Before the 2025 NASA Championships had come to a close, lots of lap records had fallen, but none more significant than the TTU lap logged by NASA Great Lakes driver Jonathan Finstrom.
Finstrom set the new overall track record at Ozarks International Raceway at 2:08.639, some 2 seconds quicker than the Formula Atlantic car that once held the record.
Finstrom, who is the 2023, 2024 and now 2025 TTU National Champion, was driving his usual weapon of choice, a Staudacher S12, powered by a 200-horsepower 1,000-cc Suzuki engine. The car weighs just over 900 pounds with Finstrom in it. Those are some impressive numbers, as is the 155.7 mph top speed Finstrom hits in the last section of OIR’s Roller Coaster.
How about some more impressive numbers? Finstrom was pulling 3.97 sustained lateral g’s in some of OIR’s corners and up to 2.93 vertical g’s in some of the heavier areas of compression on the track. The physical loads are just brutal.
“That was probably my 20th lap that I did that on. And so I feel there’s probably a 2:06 in the car, but also with that track being 19 turns and all blind or uphill or downhill or off camber or cambered, there’s a lot of memory and a lot of commitment to create that,” Finstrom said. “Plus having guardrails and concrete walls in a lot of those turns is very much a commitment, and it takes some guts to be able to do that. So reviewing my lap afterward, and I knew I had more, but then I’m like, ‘Well, my goal coming down there was to do a 2:08,’ and I achieved that, and so am I going to risk myself and everything to go faster? But reviewing the lap, I do feel there’s more in it.”
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