Our 12th round of Autobahn’s Spec Miata and SM2 season would be our final race of our 2025 season taking place on Autobahn’s south track. Both classes fielded 18 drivers for our third to final Spec Miata/SM2 race weekend. Samuel Bowman set our pole time, 0.023 ahead of Taro Kushida starting next to him in Spec Miata. As for SM2, championship leader Eli Dysart would lead our SM2 field, having set a time of 1:38.086, 1.243 seconds quicker than SM2’s second place qualifier, Sean Benet. Taro Kushida and Gavin Gleitsman took over the top two positions after the first turn in Spec Miata from Samuel Bowman, meanwhile Bob Reisinger had a worse start having missed a shift, but only lost one position. Brandon Collins moved up three positions in the span of two laps, having started from seventh.
Even more impressively, Conor Ryan started in the back of the SM2 field, and was already up to sixth after three laps himself. Gavin Gleitsman took back the lead in Spec Miata after his botched start, having a buffer of Taro Kushida, and Samuel Bowman between him and his championship rival, Brandon Collins. Kevin Ballard came to a halt at turn 10, considerately parking behind the corner worker, thus preventing a yellow flag, (Thank you, Kevin!). On lap six at turn 11, Taro Kushida after going side by side with Samuel Bowman at turn 11, went off the track, knocking him down to 14th after he got back onto the track, eventually retiring from the race just short of the halfway mark. Brandon Collins took over second place from Samuel Bowman to bring himself right behind championship rival Gavin Gleitsman. Mike Brinati had moved his way up to fifth by the halfway point, but had an off at turn 8, knocking him down to eighth. As race leaders Gavin Gleitsman, and Brandon Collins approached lapped traffic, Collins used that to his advantage to get the pass done at turn 7. Gavin Gelitsman took back the lead at the start of lap 14.
As we came to four laps to go, Matt Keck lost his left rear wheel entering turn 13, giving us a full course yellow. After getting Keck out of the way, we had ourselves a one lap dash with Collins and Gleistsman side by side, so much so that they made contact at turn 8 after Samuel Bowman tried to poke his nose in there, with Collins making a move, putting both himself and Gleitsman spinning off the track, ending their days ninth and 11th respectively. This cleared the way for Samuel Bowman to take the win for Spec Miata, with Alex Bertagnoli and Matt Alexander rounding out the podium in Spec Miata. Even after the one lap dash to the checkers, Eli Dysart had a clearer path to victory, as if it was not obvious enough, after his nearest rival Sean Benet shredded an axle nut after halfway after setting his fastest lap on Autobahn’s south course this year, ending his charge to battle Dysart for SM2 victory, thus giving Eamon and Conor Ryan second and third respectively to round out SM2’s podium.
