Every four years we watch Olympic downhill skiers hurtling down a mountainside as fast as humanly possible, slashing around flags while maintaining as much momentum as they can. The objective is simple: The fastest time down the hill wins.
NASA Time Trial drivers don’t have to wait four years or even for winter. We get to compete in the equivalent of our Olympics every September, and each year at a different track. This year, NASA Time Trial drivers competed in the NASA Championships at Ozarks International Raceway, a rough equivalent to skiing the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps.
Ozarks International Raceway is fast, and it features 19 turns and 150 feet of elevation change, and 1,200 feet of elevation change during a single lap. It takes a fair amount of familiarization before you can know for sure where you can push it and where to hold something in reserve.
These Time Trial drivers put in the work to get to know Ozarks International Raceway, and they came away as medal winners in Time Trial at the 2025 NASA Championships.
Time Trial 1
The interesting thing about the TT1 class is that the winning time was faster than TTGT and faster than the second place TTU car. That means only the TTU winner posted faster times, and that was in a Staudacher S12 sports racer. TT1 winner Eric Kennel, who took second in the NASA Championships in TT1 last year, did it in a C6 Z06 Corvette. On his second visit to Ozarks International Raceway, Kennel picked up the TT1 win and the Championship by running a 2:20.994-second lap.
“I watched a lot of YouTube videos of fast laps, and talked to the track owner. He gave me a ride in his Ford Raptor. Showed me all the ins and outs and just built up to it slowly because his track demands focus and respect at all times,” Kennel said. “You disrespect this track, you’re not going to have a good time. Louis and John, my pit crew team, did a great job, set it up and just sent it and we were happy with the results.”
2023 and 2024 ST1 Champion Joe Kellerman chased Kennel all weekend. He couldn’t quite match Kennel’s speed and came away with second place in TT1, with a 2:26.100 at OIR.
“I definitely had my hands full with Eric. I ran good, personal best by 2.2 seconds. I was happy. Eric’s the man. I did everything I could ,and I had fun, accomplished my goals,” Kellerman said, noting the difference between racing and TT. “It’s like you’re on autopilot in ST just because you do it so many times over and over again. Then you come back to TT, now you really concentrate. And once you find those spots, as I mentioned before, you pick up seconds, not just tenths. If you’re in the right spot, you get at these high-speed turns way faster than you think you can. It’s amazing how much it pays off. Like I said, it’s not just tenths here. It’s seconds. Now when you’re at Eric’s level, he can’t pick up more than tenths because he’s going too fast already.”
Another interesting aspect of the TT1 field was that three of the four cars were Chevrolets: one Camaro and two Corvettes. The other car on the list is something you might normally find in ST5 or ST6.
Tage Evanson brought his Honda Civic, one of the fastest of its kind in the country, to OIR, got the car in good repair and found some clear track to take third in TT1 with a 2:26.561, just .461 seconds off Kellerman’s second-place time in his C5 Z06 Corvette.
“I’m happy with the time. I just wanted to get into the 2:20s,” Evanson said. “But that was the only lap that I actually completed all the way around. Everything else was traffic and or a belt breaking or axle popping out. Such is life. Got to build a better car. I want to come back. There’s plenty more time out there. Not enough to catch Eric, but somewhere between those two times.”
Time Trial 2
Blake Pomykal took the win in TT2, logging a 2:28.014 in the very last round of competition Sunday afternoon. Sunday morning’s round 5 was cooler, but Pomykal put all his experience from the weekend to good use and put it all together in round six.
Coming in second, Jeremy Salenius ran a 2:30.403 despite dealing with a throttle body code that has hampered the car in past events. By Sunday morning, he had the track figured out enough to know where he could push and where to dial it back a bit, and he nabbed his best time in round five, the first session Sunday morning.
“Well, it was, I think, the third time we’ve had the Corvette at that track now. It is really just about how much risk you want to take, right?” Salenius said. “So we just decided that by round five it was time to give it everything that it had. I didn’t think the run was actually going to be 2:30.4. I didn’t think it was going to quite be that fast. But when I crossed the line and looked down at the Garmin real quick to see where the time was, we were at a 2:30. I felt like we were pretty good. And then I was hoping to push even further than that, but caught traffic on the next couple of tries.”
Just .651 seconds behind Salenius was Ben Grambau, who notched his best time of the weekend in session three at 2:31.054, which was faster than his fast lap of the ST2 race.
“I never got faster than what I did on Friday, so it was Saturday and Sunday that were both quite a bit slower, so it was not where I wanted to be from a competition-day standpoint in TT,” Grambau said. “I just wasn’t able to ever put a lap together in the competition sessions.”
Time Trial 3
In the two-car Time Trial 3 class, everyone would land on the podium, but only one would be Champion. NASA Arizona’s Cameron Lane, who finished second in TT3 at the 2024 Championships in Utah in his LS-swapped Mazda RX-8, came out on top, not only as the TT3 Champion, but also as the new TT3 track record holder. Lane set the new record at 2:27.522, a time he set in the last lap of the last TT session he drove at Ozarks International Raceway. And that was after the session was black-flagged.
“I exceeded expectations getting into the 20s,” Lane said after the podium ceremony. “It’s a high-commitment, high-risk, high-reward track, and you’ve got to put everything on the line to get the lap time, for sure. It’s going to be a good drive home.”
It’s also worth noting that Lane’s TT3 lap time was faster than the winning lap time in TT2.
Unlike Lane, NASA MidAmerica’s Corey Crane set his fastest lap the in first session of competition. A regular to Ozarks International Raceway, Crane focused on consistency and finished in the top 10 of 30 cars in Time Trial Target.
“The track was good all weekend. I think what I focused on was the consistency,” Crane said while standing next to Lane. “I knew I was not going to catch this guy, so what I tried to do was do really well on the TTT session. So from consistency standpoint and I ended up sixth in that. So yeah, I’m happy. I mean, this is my local track, so I’ve put hundreds of miles around this thing. So it’s just good to be here from a national level.”
Time Trial 4
The largest class in all of Time Trial, TT4 was a nail-biter. Just 1.034 seconds separated first from third place and just .237 seconds separated second from third.
NASA Texas driver David Whitener of WRS Racing scored the top time in TT4 at 2:33.255. Whitener scored his winning time in the fifth session first thing Sunday morning. When he tried to best that time in the sixth session, the motor let go.
“I think everything came together this morning. This track is definitely a dangerous place and I took the right amount of risk and no more, no less,” Whitener said after collecting his trophy. “It’s a great finish. Unfortunately I popped a motor at the very last session, so it’s a little bit of a bummer, but that’s how it goes.”
Team Room Temperature IQ driver Bryce Moore scored second place in TT4. Moore laid down a 2:34.052 in the fifth round of competition first thing Sunday morning when the air was as crisp and cool as it had been all weekend. The NASA Arizona driver was competing on his first trip to OIR.
“The first session was absolutely terrifying, but I slowly learned the track, felt more confident, learned when to push it and where I can. So yeah, it was a good time,” Moore said. “We ran into a bunch of problems with the Lotus, but ended up doing as well as I wanted to. So I’m very happy with how everything went. Coming into this, my goal was at least third, but I got second, so I’m happy. Congrats to David for first. He deserves it. He did an amazing lap time.”
NASA NorCal driver Svilen Kanev came to OIR not knowing the track at all, so he had a big learning curve before he could go fast here. Kanev also was racing in ST4, where he placed second. Kanev’s TT4 lap time in round five Sunday morning was 1.186 seconds faster than his fastest ST4 lap.
“It’s obviously a hard place to learn. We kept improving every day and then pulled back. I put a lap together this morning, which ended up good enough for third,” Kanev said. “This place definitely needs practice, and it’s a driver’s track. It needs a lot of confidence and I was just building up confidence slowly. Fantastic weekend. I definitely want to come back to this track. It’s quite something.”
Time Trial 5
NASA Great Lakes driver Jordan Hill was competing in his second Championships event, his first being Mid-Ohio where he finished fourth.
Hill had been struggling to get his car ready all month so that he could have something that would allow him to compete. At Ozarks, Team John Wallace – PX set his fast lap in the first session of competition. Hill was finally able to beat Wallace’s fast lap in session five first thing Sunday morning, which held through the final session six. Hill’s 2:37.712 was just .212 seconds faster than the second-place car.
“I wanted to come here with a reliable car and put up a decent fight against John. I knew it’d be close,” Hill said. “We lost an axle earlier, brake failure about three weeks ago. All new suspension, bad radiator, and it was just one thing after another I had to fix. But it ran well all weekend. Coincidentally, I got a check engine light after I pulled it on the trailer, so perfect timing.”
Wallace had his share of struggles, too. During practice another car spun and collected Wallace’s car, which meant it would need extensive repairs to return to competition. The classic wrong place, wrong time kind of incident.
“We spent most of the day Friday after that, trying to get the car back together. Some trips to hardware store, trying to get things back late night, Friday night, trying to get everything back together,” said the NASA Texas driver. “But we managed to get it back together and the car did really well. Not as well as when we got here, but well enough to get us on the podium at least.
Team Mick Blue Racing had its hands full all weekend long. The team was competing not only in TT5, but also in in Spec E46 and ST5. Without the benefits of aero on his Spec E46 car, driver Michael Omelko knew that he didn’t have enough speed on tap to vie for the TT5 Championship, so he was doing his best to claim that last spot on the podium, and he did.
Omelko finally notched the lap that got him third place on Sunday morning’s session five, right after the opening ceremony.
“The only reason why I went out today in the morning was just to warm up the tires for the ST5 race so that they’re not cold, and I can recheck the tire pressures after the TT session,” Omelko said. “And I even had a full tank ready for ST5. So I was like 90 pounds over and I was like, you know what, I’m just going to send one and see what happens. And it was my fastest lap in TT, which was a 42 flat. Go figure.”
Time Trial 6
Time Trial 6 had one competitor, NASA Texas driver Gerry Terranova, who was on a mission to keep dropping his lap times and maybe equal or better those at the front of Spec Miata.
On his third trip to OIR, Terranova dropped his lap times from a 2:51 down to a 2:47.198. On a car with no aero in a class that allows it, Terranova got what he came for.
“I have no aero at all,” Terranova said. “And I think I may have beat the Spec Miata times too. I haven’t seen them yet, so I’m not sure where they ended up.”
Terranova was .002 seconds off the pace of the Spec Miata winner Lincoln Larson, who’s best lap was a 2:47.196.
Time Trial GT
In horse racing, there is nothing like coming out of the gates hard. In similar fashion, Brian Faessler, who campaigns a Mustang in Time Trial GT, also came out of the gates galloping, putting up the winning TTGT time in the first session of competition. Faessler let that time stand, opting out of the rest of the Time Trial sessions to save his car for racing in American Iron Extreme and GT, but having been to OIR twice this year, he understands what it takes to go fast here, logging a 2:24.348 to take the TTGT Championship.
“It’s just making sure to manage the risk,” Faessler said. “This track’s very tough to learn. Just trying to learn where you can and can’t go fast, and I was able to just learn it from James and JR Pesek. They were able to help us out.”
NASA MidAmerica driver Ken Richards was trying to go faster than his personal best. That he was never able to top it didn’t stop him from taking second place in TTGT in his Chevrolet Camaro. Richards learned a lot during the Championships, including the value of putting more space between himself and the car in front. Still, he took second in TTGT with a 2:37.074.
“I’ve been able to go a lot faster out here. However, I had fun and the main thing, I am going home with a car in one piece,” Richards said. “I had a great time. I was definitely off a few seconds and that’s OK. You still learn, because my optimal times, according to Garmin, was about 2:33, 2:34. So I felt pretty good about that. I’ve just got to start putting a better lap together.”
NASA Texas driver Raymund Guerrero had to put his lap together in a big hurry. His practice times on Thursday were better than his competition times, but Guerrero got his 2:39.229 in the very last laps of the very last session late Sunday morning.
“There was a black flag. I had to pass two cars. We had one lap to do it because of the black flag incident, and I had to try to make it work in the last lap or two,” he said. “So you’ve got to make it happen. That makes everything different. Driving while relaxed and then driving under pressure. It’s cool when you can put together a drive that you’re happy with.”
Time Trial Target
The name of the game in Time Trial Target is consistency. TTT measures the delta between a driver’s four fastest times of the weekend and rewards the top three as though it were a separate Time Trial class — because, well, it is.
No one was more consistent in his fastest laps than NASA Arizona driver Eric Kennel with Team Auto Solve. Kennel ran his fastest lap of the weekend in Round 5, and took first place in TT1. His fastest laps were separated by a delta of .401 seconds, which was the consistency it took to win TTT.
“The car is very consistent to drive. I have a ton of seat time in it now. The past two years I just, I’m very comfortable in the car and figured out the track and just kept in my zone and just pushed a little bit harder here and there,” Kennel said. “I was not overstepping because if you make a mistake here, it’s going to end real bad. So just keeping the car in one piece is my main goal. It’s not actually my car, so that’s very important to me. So we did good. We were real happy with it. It’s a great, great weekend.”
Blake Pomykal took second place in this BMW M3, but he only missed taking the win by .027 seconds. That’s how close it was in TTT. Pomykal’s fastest four laps were separated by a delta of just .428 seconds.
Third place Team John Wallace – PX driver started the weekend off with a bit of a mishap when a spinning car collided with him during Thursday practice. The team spent a great deal of the day Friday just putting the car back together. Their efforts paid off because not only did Wallace take second in TT5, but also took third in TTT, with a total delta of 1.056 seconds.
“It’s one of those of (situations where) you hope for the best and you just try and get as close as you can,” Wallace added. “We didn’t want to give up. It was one of those, ‘Yeah, this happened, but let’s make sure that we can still compete.’ That was the big thing for us.”
Time Trial Unlimited
The overall track record at Ozarks International Raceway was set by a Formula Atlantic car, and the 2:10-second lap time stood for a while. That was at least until NASA Great Lakes TTU driver Jonathan Finstrom came to town.
Driving his Staudacher S12, Finstrom set a blistering lap and shattered the old record by nearly 2 seconds. Finstrom’s 2:08.639 was also some 20 seconds faster than the second-place finisher in TTU.
“I’m not sure what my exact time was,” noting that his Staudacher is particularly well suited to OIR. “It’s a very high-downforce track, a high-speed track. A lot of sweeping corners at high speed, so it’s very good for a high-downforce car like the Staudacher. There’s probably a little more in it too, but it takes a lot to go that speed and so it’s the risk-reward factor. I came down here with the goal of a 2:08 and I got it, and I’m happy.”
Coming in second in the two-car TTU class was James King, who was able to knock a few tenths off his personal best. Every visit to OIR is instructive as to what it takes to go fast here.
“(It takes) guts. Yeah, you basically have to commit,” King said. “You definitely have to know what not to do and then once you’re going to take it, you can’t back out. You’ve got to go. So there’s a few corners here that you either dive in and do it or you don’t.”
