Sunday at a NASA Championships event is the boiling point of the entire weekend. It’s all about making it to Sunday and starting from as best a grid position as a driver can muster. If you want to win a Championship, you must win on Sunday.
The recipe for success is somewhat simple in theory, but any good chef will tell you that getting a recipe to turn out exactly as planned is anything but. There are so many variables out of your control and decisions to be made during a NASA Championships event. Get any of them wrong and your chances of success can deflate faster than a Yorkshire pudding.
When the checkered flags flew, these were the drivers who made the right decisions and built upon their successes to stand on the highest step on the podium with the biggest trophies.
944 Spec
Calvin Rowe was the man to beat in 944 Spec all weekend. He set the fastest lap in Friday’s Q1, won the qualifying race, nabbed pole position for the big race on Sunday and took the win and the Championship.
Rowe had jumped out to an early lead and established a gap on Jeremy Pohlman in the second spot. About two thirds of the race the double-yellows came out and bunched up the field again. That gave him another shot at getting around Rowe, but it was not to be. After the race restarted, Rowe went on to take the win.
“It was harder than it looked. That was probably the most hard fought 944 Spec weekend I’ve ever had. Typically I can get out front and run away, but that there was no running away. I was under pressure from the start of the weekend to the end of the weekend,” Rowe said. “It was definitely really hard fought, really hard to earn, and it took some digging deep to stay out front, so it was good. But definitely hats off to Jeremy. He pushed me. I’ve never had someone give me that much pressure before, so it was definitely a new feeling to kind of have to navigate that and keep it clean.”
Pohlman took second and Shawn Taylor finished in the third position.
American Iron
Three-time champion Bruce Byerly had never been so nervous going into a NASA National Championship race than at Ozarks International Raceway. He overcame any nerves to cruise to the American Iron Championship.
“The track is crazy intimidating when you first walk up to it,” said Byerly, who runs in the NASA Florida Region. “But after a few days. I mean, it’s probably the most fun track I’ve ever been on.”
Two weeks before the NASA National Championships, Byerly had put in a new engine in his Ford Mustang, but was dealing with car problems during the four-day Championship.
“We thought we had it running right, it ran fine on the dyno, and then it didn’t run,” he said. “We’ve been throwing, all the way up until this morning, a bunch of sensors at it to make it run, hoping for the best.”
Before he got to the starting grid, the team had to replace a valve stem on a wheel. “That would have been the end of it right there,” Byerly said.
The American Iron class had six cars start the race and finish. Isaiah Haines of the Mid-South Region finished second and Bob Collins from the Great Lakes Region was third.
Byerly was hoping for an all Florida Region podium, but it wasn’t meant to be.
American Iron Extreme
Brian Faessler completed the trifecta of NASA National Championships at the Ozarks International Raceway, winning the American Iron Extreme class, GT and Time Trial GT to add to his trophy collection. Faessler now has nine NASA National Championships.
“I don’t think many people usually run more than one, maybe two classes,” Faessler said. “To do two race groups and a Time Trial is pretty challenging on the car.”
Heading into the Sunday matchup, Faessler was anticipating a head-to-head challenge with second-place finisher Derric Carter. Carter, though, was having mechanical issues with his Ford GT.
“I took off in second gear when I shifted up into third and for some reason it caught neutral on me, and I was revving out,” Carter said. “Then the electronics were not happy about the fact that it was so high of a rev.”
With Carter having mechanical problems during the race, Faessler maintained a steady pace to extend his lead to more than 16 seconds over Carter. Faessler turned his best lap of 2:24.159, which was nearly 10 seconds better than his nearest competitor.
Faessler’s car was subject to a protest on Friday, which NASA officials subsequently denied. While Faessler was frustrated, he said it was part of racing.
“When the visor goes down, you compartmentalize and forget about that stuff,” he said.
Nick Plocienik of the MidAmerica region was third on the podium.
GT
Some national championships are won in a dogfight. Brian Faessler’s GT title at the NASA National Championships was a survival story. Two cars in the class didn’t make it to starting grid for Sunday’s Championship race, leaving Faessler as the sole entry and the new National Champion in GT.
Faessler ran a couple laps around OIR and parked the Ford Mustang to preserve the car as the Great Lakes Region racer was participating in Time Trial GT and American Iron Extreme.
“Tage Evanson was maybe going to come out, but I saw he got towed in not too long before the race started,” Faessler said. “I was mainly just out there just for insurance on the off chance he was able to make it out, but mainly just trying to get my head ready for the race.”
The GT title was Faessler’s seventh NASA National Championship, and he would go on to win two more NASA National Championships on Sunday, bringing his total to nine championships. Faessler has run the Ford Mustang for more than a decade, a testament to the team’s maintenance program.
“I know how hard I need to run the car to (get) certain times, and I kind of know the weak points of the car,” said Faessler, who runs in the NASA Great Lakes Region. “It’s the tenth or eleventh year running this car, so I know what to do and not to do.”
Legends
They say you have to finish to win. Bobby Christensen did not, but he still took the victory to win his third consecutive National Championship. Bobby Pugh had initially won the National Championship race on Sunday but was disqualified for passing on a yellow flag on the roller coaster that moved Pugh into the top spot. As a result, Pugh owes dinner to his fellow Legends racers.
Pugh was having a tough time keeping pace with Christensen when three laps before the checker flag, his engine threw a rod on the Legends car. “The car was running good, and I had no indication is going to blow up,” Pugh said. “It just went boom.”
After winning Saturday’s qualifying races, Christensen had put some distance between himself and Pugh in the two-car field. The Legends class started the National Championships with five cars before mechanical problems kept three from the starting grid.
“I drove consistent and just tried keeping it close, keeping it smart,” said Christensen, who was denied a third NASA National Championship. “I ran 80 percent of what I did yesterday, so it was good and fun.”
NASA Prototype
The NP01 race at the 2025 NASA Championships was essentially a war of attrition. After a safety car period, class leader Tyler Atkinson took the restart, but soon was off pace and driving off line. When he pulled into impound after nine laps, he was worried his lead and a potential win would evaporate.
“Obviously, I’m not allowed to look at my car yet, but I think my shifter cable broke because I had lost the ability to shift. So, I was stuck in second gear,” Atkinson said. “I thought I was going to hand the win to Steve, but luckily he DNF’d before I did.”
Second-place finisher Steve Seiler thinks he bent a wheel early in the race and pulled off due to excess vibration.
Spec E30
Matthew Ibrahim woke up Sunday morning not feeling so great. He had been trailing Garrett Manes all weekend, and that was certainly the case in the Championships race on Sunday. But Ibrahims was much closer to Manes on Sunday, clearly within striking distance.
And strike he did in Turn 11 about two-thirds of the way through the 45-minute race. Ibrahim initiated the pass heading into Turn 11 and took the next couple of corners to complete the pass. He maintained his lead and went on to take the win and the Spec E30 Championship, his first.
“Garrett’s a phenomenal driver, honestly. He’s so good. He was killing it. He was doing amazing” Ibrahim said. “I felt like he was a little bit faster in a straight line than me. Plus he went on tires that I think were older than mine. I went on fresh tires.”
Ibrahim appeared to be feeling better after the race. Team Sean Aron came in second and Manes finished third.
Spec E46
Team Mick Blue Racing competed in Time Trial, Super Touring 5 and Spec E46 during the Championships weekend. Driver Michael Omelko finished third in TT5 and third in ST5, but the win he cared about most was Spec E46.
Omelko has a Spec E30 Championship from 2024 and between seasons he moved up to Spec E46. Omelko had built up a lead, but when the full-course caution came out, he had Jeremy Evans in his mirrors again. When the race restarted, Omelko put his head down chased the cars ahead of him and established a gap and went on to take the win and the Spec E46 Championship.
“When a full course caution comes out and everything is neutralized, I mean that’s racing,” Omelko said. “And then the restart was good and basically did the same thing, tried to pull away. And once I saw that I was able to hang with the Mustangs, I basically, uses the Mustang as my rabbit.”
Evans finished second with Jason Rikke in third.
Spec Miata
Spec Miata at the 2025 NASA Championships was the kind of race that drivers always hope for and the kind of race fans want to see.
As happened during the qualifying race on Saturday, Vaughan Weber and Lincoln Larson leaped out from the tightly packed start to lead the field and build a gap. For the first, oh, two-thirds of the race Weber led Larson around the track as they began to inch away from the field.
Then, on the exit of Turn 11, Weber got a little loose and dropped a wheel off track, which cost him the momentum needed to climb the hill on the way to Turn 12. That was all Larson needed to take the lead.
Larson led Weber for the remainder of the race, but Weber was always within striking distance. On the last lap in the hairpin turn that empties onto the front straight, Weber got alongside Larson and the two sprinted to a photo finish, with Larson taking the win by half a bumper.
“I was just sticking with him the whole race and then waited for him to make a mistake. He made a mistake and I got my chance to get past him and then I was able to pull a bit of a gap every lap,” Larson said after the race. “He’d catch me in the first sector every time, but I’d be able to pull it in the second and third sector, and then he’s super fast in the final corner and he got on the inside of the final corner. It was just a drag race and to the finish line
Weber finished second, followed by Vinnie Meskelis in third.
Super Touring 1
Joe Kellerman captured his third NASA National Championship in Super Touring 1, continuing a dominant run for the NASA Great Lakes racer.
Kellerman was on pole for the race and never looked back. Kellerman built a 10-second lead over second-place finisher Sean Butterfield of the NASA Arizona Region only to see it shrink to 3 seconds after the yellow flag was thrown.
Kellerman still had enough left in the Corvette Z06 to hold off Butterfield and Jason Perry, who joined them on the podium in third place. Kellerman’s best lap was 2:30.116.
“Three in a row, baby, I’ll take it,” said Kellerman, who won NASA National Championships in Utah and Pittsburgh. Kellerman may have felt the pressure to win his Super Touring 1 crown, he wasn’t showing it leading up the finale.
“There was definitely more pressure trying to win a third,” Kellerman said. “I said my prayers and prepared as much as I possibly could.”
With perfect weather conditions on Sunday, Kellerman was hoping to beat the track record but it wasn’t meant to be.
“The back of the car was bottomed out, in the past it wasn’t bottoming out, so I had to break before every dip,” he said. “I was going slower between every dip so the car wouldn’t bottom out, because I don’t know, I didn’t know what it was hitting. So, that slowed me down a good couple seconds every lap.”
Super Touring 2
The Super Touring 2 class was a battle of attrition with two cars making it to the starting grid for the NASA Championships and when the race was finished, Florida’s Ken Mantovani was standing atop the podium.
Ben Grambau was the favorite going in, but the car’s suspension broke in Turn 8 with two laps to go, allowing Mantovani to drive home with the National Championship. “It went sideways at 105 mph, and I’m beyond lucky I didn’t stuff it into a wall,” said Grambau, who was second.
“I was just happy to hang on and it was a battle of attrition this weekend,” Mantovani said. “Ben (Grambau) was definitely the stronger driver and had the stronger car this weekend, so I give him props. I just won by default.”
Mantovani was being modest having collected his third NASA National Championship, winning won in 2017 and 2021. Yet the Florida Region racer kept it close and took advantage of Grambau’s mechanical problem. Mantovani is glad he made the trip to Missouri to race Ozarks International Raceway.
“I specifically came to this one because of the track,” Mantovani said. “This is my favorite track in the country or just any of the tracks I’ve raced basically in the world at this point.”
Super Touring 3
David Lecko’s parents drove over from St. Louis to watch their son win his first NASA National Championship on the Ozarks International Raceway. After being the runner-up at the 2024 NASA National Championship in Utah, Lecko was able to close the deal in 2025.
“I’ve continued to get better, and every time we go out there, they’re making the car better,” Lecko said. “I’ve got thank Derek Eastty, my coach, and Susan Pfeiffer, my mechanic, for doing a lot of work with the car and me.”
Lecko started at P1 and built an early lead, eventually growing it to more than 35 seconds over second-place finisher Nick Padron. Lecko was a tick off the track record for ST3, turning a best lap of 2:30.86. The NASA Texas Region racer had to slow up midway during the race because of a temperature warning sensor.
“We had a temp warning light yesterday, so I wasn’t sure what that was,” said Lecko, who the top Saturday’s top ST3 qualifier with a best lap of 02:33.1. “I wanted to make sure we made it to the end.”
Adam Merchant, who started fifth on the grid, earned third place.
Lecko is already looking toward 2026 and defending his first NASA National Championship. “I’m absolutely going to defend it, wherever it’s held,” he said.
Super Touring 4
Early on in the event Super Touring 4 driver Scott Smith said he had never won a National Championship, and he felt like this was his year. We didn’t dare publish that quote in early releases lest we jinx him, but here we are on Sunday, and Smith is the new ST4 National Champion. It really was his year.
Smith took advantage of his pole position and built a gap on second place Svilen Kanev, whose lap times had been dropping all weekend. Smith also set a new ST4 track record at 2:32.789. In the end, it was Smith’s race to lose, but he never took it for granted.
“I was getting kind of nervous like Svilen did his personal best that beat my time from a couple of years ago and I was honestly worried that he would be a threat,” Smith said. “He’s fast and he’s learning, but he’s very close. It all just worked. I don’t know what, but I’m very happy.”
Kanev finished second with Patrick Kroll in third.
Super Touring 5
Justin Mason was able to get ahead, stay ahead and take the win in the ST5 qualifying race on Saturday.
For Sunday’s Championship race, Mason knew he needed to carry as much speed through the slow corners and really cowboy up for the faster turns at Ozarks International Raceway. Driving a Spec MX-5 car that does not have the benefit of aerodynamic aids, Mason knew he needed to drive as error-free a race as possible.
Early in the race, he had a mirror full of Ross Carmichael and Bryce Kliewer. About halfway through the race, Kliewer dropped a couple of wheels off track at the exit of the fast downhill Turn 1, but was able to gather it up and continue. That let Carmichael get by, but a couple of laps later, Carmichael went off track and struck a barrier, which ended his race.
All the while Mason was building his lead, which he would hold till the end to take the win and the ST5 Championship.
“I just tried to stay consistent and keep my speed up and hope that my competitors were making mistakes, and it looked like they were so, I just tried to keep it clean and it worked out,” Mason said after the 45-minute race. “I started with endurance racing, and I’m pretty used to that, so the longer the race goes on, I think I pick it up a little bit.”
Bryce Kliewer finished second followed by Team Mick Blue Racing in third.
Super Unlimited
Jonathan Finstrom had a commanding lead in Super Unlimited when a full-course caution came out. As the pace car was circling the course looking for Finstrom, his Staudacher S12 sports racer was struck from behind by an out-of-class car, which punctured his tire and damaged his suspension.
That put Joe Henski in the lead of Super Unlimited, just a bit ahead of Jason Ross, who, with help from Henski, had repaired his Ligier JSP320 in time for the Championships race.
After the restart, traffic played a role, but Henski was able to stay ahead of Ross and go on to take the Super Unlimited win and the Championship.
“There was a lot going on out there today. We had a good fast car today, but the traffic was pretty interesting,” Henski said. “We’ve got a lot of different speeds of cars out there and so we got lined back up, and took back off. The leader unfortunately had an incident with somebody getting into him and I was able to be there at the end and capitalize and take home the win today. So, I’m pretty ecstatic. It’s my first year of racing in a Radical and first year in NASA and so it’s been a lot of fun learning the car and learning NASA and what a tremendous organization it’s been to be a part of this year.”
Ross took second and Finstrom came in third.
Thunder Roadster
Derrek Morehead started at the back of the Thunder Roadster pack after breaking a suspension link. It didn’t matter as Morehead climbed 12 spots in the deep Thunder Roadster class for his second NASA National Championship.
Morehead focused early in the race to fight through traffic in the deep Thunder Roadster field. In the Great Lakes Region, the Thunder Roadster series practices a lot of reverse grids, so Morehead had plenty of experience chasing the pack.
“I tried to clear as much traffic as I could in the first several corners,” Morehead said. “I started out with just a little bit lower tire pressure than I normally do, so it would come back in and be better toward the end of the race. It usually works out pretty good on the tire pressures, and it worked out well this time.”
The group had a yellow flag late in the race, which gave second-place finisher John Spain and Jeff Stutler, who finished third, an opportunity to catch the speedy Morehead, but they ran out of time.
“I saw all my guys stacking up behind me, so I knew it was going to be another short sprint to the finish,” Morehead said. “I was just able to hold them off and they made some good challenges and didn’t give up. It wasn’t easy.”
Look for full race coverage of the 2025 NASA Championships in an upcoming issue of Speed News.
After so many folks experiencing the challenge of OIR’s amazing track, I’m hearing more and more “This is my all-time favorite track!” and I most certainly must agree. Special thanks to JR, James, and the entire OIR and NASA crew for making 2025 an unforgettable National Championship!