AUSTIN, Texas — Five points separate TeamSLR teammates Alon Day and Helio Meza heading into Sunday’s 12th and final race of the CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series season at the Circuit of The Americas, setting the stage for a championship showdown where one driver will emerge with the team’s second consecutive driver title.
The veteran Day will take to the COTA layout for the first time this weekend. But the driver of the No. 17 JSSI/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro from Ashdod, Israel, who turned 35 Wednesday, has been no stranger to championship battles in his career.
He’s a four-time NASCAR Euro Series champion, earning titles in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2022.
He’ll essentially need to qualify in the top-five and finish at least two positions ahead of Meza to emerge with this year’s TA2 Series championship in first season on the tour.
Day has been a model of consistency this season, scoring nine consecutive podium finishes from the second through 10th rounds. Two of Day’s podium finishes were victories.
“I hadn’t driven at most of the tracks before this season, yet I’ve performed well and fought for the win at almost every one,” Day said. “I’m looking forward to racing at COTA for the first time. I’m sure it’s going to be a fun track. I’ve been doing a lot of sim prep as always. I did a bit of driving in a Euro NASCAR car in Belgium as part of my job as a driver coach, but most of my preparation has been on the simulator.
“The track looks fun. I’m not a big fan of tracks with huge asphalt runoff areas, where track limits are a big part of the game, but it looks like a fun and fast track to drive. I would say it’s comparable to Paul Ricard Circuit in France. It has a similar design, with many asphalt runoff areas and fast corners.”
For Meza, the 18-year-old from just down the road in Houston, the battle comes full circle at COTA, where he launched his TA2 career at this race a year ago. He won his series debut after starting from the pole and leading every lap.
Now, with eight victories to his credit this season – seven from the pole and the other from the outside-front-row starting spot – he’s looking to put the ultimate exclamation point on the 2026 campaign behind the wheel of the No. 28 Alessandros Racing/Chevrolet/SLR-M1 Racecars Camaro.
The Chevrolet development driver simply needs to qualify in the top-five and finish no worse than one position behind Day to clinch the championship.
“Honestly, it’s going to be exactly the same. That’s one thing I’m really big on,” Meza said. “If you’re having success getting to a certain point, why would you change your approach? What I’ve been doing all year has gotten me to where I am, so there’s no reason to do anything differently now. I’ve prepared just as hard for all 11 races this year, and that’s not going to change for this one.
“Obviously, I’m going to be racing Alon just like I do every other weekend, but I’m not going to go out of my way to prevent him from doing anything. I’m just going to go out there, execute the best I can and see what happens.”
