Trans Am
Helio Meza Dominant In Winning Effort in CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series Opener
Mar 1, 2026
After finishing third-place in the 2025 Trans Am CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 PRO/AM Championship, Cale Phillips is back in the series this year to chase a title once again with the powerhouse Nitro Motorsports team.
Despite some very solid results last season, the Durham, North Carolina-native fell short of the championship, getting beaten by Jared Odrick and Keith Prociuk, both of whom had the advantage of utilizing some (or all) of their three drop races.
While piloting the No. 99 Mincey’s Graphics Toyota Camry XSE this season, Phillips will continue to search for his first career victory in the PRO/AM Championship, an achievement he’s come brutally close to making happen several times, finishing runner-up three times in his career (twice at VIRginia International Raceway in 2024 and 2025, and last Spring at Lime Rock Park).
At 37 years old, Phillips’ path to competing in the Trans Am Series by Pirelli has been much different than some of his other counterparts in the CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series, some of whom are much younger.
Growing up on a farm outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, it wasn’t until Phillips was given his first dirt bike at age 13 that he got the taste for racing. Over the next decade, while advancing his basketball career to the college level, Phillips raced sporadically at the amateur level at local motocross tracks across Virginia and North Carolina.
After graduating from college in 2009, Phillips acquired his NASA competition racing license, beginning a decade-long career racing at the club level, where the North Carolina-native worked hard to win his race, finally doing so in September 2015. During that time, Phillips raced in a Mazda RX7, Mazda Protégé, and eventually a Mazda Miata.
Yes, Phillips does have 15-plus years of amateur racing experience, but the Trans Am CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 PRO/AM Series driver does have an even bigger connection to the NASCAR National Series world, having spent eight years as a Senior Accountant at the iconic championship-winning organization Team Penske.
After a pretty solid run in the Trans AM CUBE 3 Architecture PRO/AM Championship season-opener at Sebring International Raceway, Phillips still sits in an incredible position to compete for the championship, as the series heads to Road Atlanta next for the second race of its 12-race schedule.
Starting the event 21st overall (and fourth of the drivers in the PRO/AM Championship), Phillips worked hard throughout the event to stay within striking distance of his fellow TA2 PRO/AM drivers, and when a late-race restart happened, the driver got around Keith Prociuk to steal a podium in the season-opener.
Helio Meza took the victory overall in the Trans Am CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Championship event at Sebring, with Jared Odrick winning the PRO/AM Class. Tom Sheehan finished second.
“A lot of it was just staying out of trouble, really,” said Cale Phillips, driver of the No. 99 Toyota Camry XSE. “There was so much action going on, a couple of cautions, I was just trying to stay in touch with the PRO/AM guys, we all kind of started right next to each other at the start, so, trying to stay in touch with them and dodge the wrecks that had happened during the race.”
It’s a fantastic start to the 12-race campaign for Phillips in the Trans Am CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 PRO/AM Championship, which will see the lowest three points-scoring events dropped at season’s end, to put forward the highest-scoring nine-race stretch possible.
It’s the seventh podium for Phillips in the TA2 PRO/AM Championship.
“That’s what we wanted, we wanted to start the year off on the podium,” Phillips added. “We’re going for a championship, so as many points as we can get early on in the year will help. We kind of started a little behind last year, so that was one of our goals. We finished on the podium, so we achieved that, and looking forward to going to Road Atlanta next.”
The Trans Am CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 PRO/AM Championship returns to action at Road Atlanta on Saturday, March 14, 2026, at 12:45 PM ET, with coverage of the event on RacingAmerica.tv, Racing America 24/7, and the Trans Am Series by Pirelli YouTube channel.
-- Photo: Chris Clark
