Sergio Orestes Racing

Finally, the first race of the 2026 season has come. Ive been longly anticipating this event since it marks the starts of my first real full season of racing cars wheel to wheel since moving up from karting. Although this first race is a non points race, it will still serve as a good test to see if all the work ive done during the off season has paid off.

This weekend marked a small but meaningful step forward. I came in with the clear goar to not mess up quali. Historically, I’ve been stuck starting from the back, so putting together a clean lap mattered. This time, I delivered and started P7, a solid improvement and a confidence boost heading into the races.

We were thrown into the deep end with 30-minute sprint races in 90+ degree weather. Tough conditions for both driver and car, but in a lot of ways, that served as the real test. The good thing is that now we know better what the car does well and where it still need some improvement. The car was solid all day Saturday, giving us a p5 finish during the race.

Sunday didn’t go as planned, though. A blown axle forced us to DNF, sucks but its part of the process. It’s just another issue to solve, and making the car even more reliable.

A big part of this progress comes from the people around me. Working with Alejo Fernandez (afracing126) has been a game changer for my driver development. What started as sim work is now translating into real world performance and that’s been huge.

Also couldn’t have done it without my friend Damian Reyes (dwreyyes) who was there all weekend helping me handle all the side quests that come with race weekends.

Shoutout to Jesse from Camber & Caster (@camberxcaster) for jumping in as a sponsor on short notice. They are a sim racing lounge located in Oceanside California, check them out.

As always, Rudy from RTA Autoservice (@rta_autoservice) came through clutch getting the car dialed in right before race time.

Appreciate Anthony Lim (@atype.ant) for always letting me use his race trailer — if you’re in SoCal and need one for track days, definitely hit him up.