WORLD Racing dominates the Dyno Challenge and takes 1st place in Time Attack for FWD at the annual Modified Ultimate Tuner Challenge

WORLD Racing made their way to the second annual Modified Ultimate Tuner Challenge which was held May 23rd and 24th at Firebird Raceway in Chandler, Arizona. At an event comprised of both road racing, drag racing, and drifting, there was no surprise when a crowd of over 10,000 showed up. “It was a great weekend for sport compact and motorsports in general,” says Chris Rado, driver for and owner of the WORLD Racing team.

Modified ran the Ultimate Tuner Challenge in three categories – FWD, RWD and AWD – and there was to be an overall winner as well as a winner in each category. “For us, we are not just out their competing with front-wheel-drive, we are out there to win the entire event,” says Chris.

The WORLD Racing team produced three different setups for the time attack 2007 SCION tC time attack car allowing it to run in time attack, make it down the line for drag racing, run a SCCA skid pad, as well annihilate the competition in a dyno challenge.

The first event of the weekend for the team was the dyno challenge. “Being a professional drag racer for the past ten years,” says Chris, “if I can’t win a dyno challenge even with a four-cylinder, then I shouldn’t be racing.”

The WORLD Racing time attack SCION tC was put on the dyno and laid out 713 horsepower and 703 pounds of torque. These numbers set the bar extremely high. After all the cars had given it their best, there wasn’t even another car in the competition within 150 hp of the SCION tC. The WORLD Racing team had destroyed the competition and finished 1st in the dyno challenge.

First thing Saturday morning the team set up the car to prepare it for autocross – something both Chris and the time attack SCION tC have never done before. All in all Chris had a lot of fun on the autocross track, even though his car is more of a high horsepower and high-speed car. “I’m the kind of person that likes to put it in forth or fifth gear and just go – if I can’t to that, then I’m just not going fast enough.”

On the first attempt on the skid pad, the SCION tC shut off right away due to fuel pump issues. This prevented Chris from carrying out a practice run on the skid pad.

The wide 295’s on the time attack car were taking a while to heat up – just as they usually do on a road course. Finally the team would get sufficient heat on the rear tires to get the grip that they wanted. The WORLD Racing team finished 10th out of 14th on the skid pad. Next up was the drag racing event which was their forte – Chris and the team couldn’t wait.

Prepared with a bag of tricks, the WORLD Racing team primed the car for drag racing. To everyone’s surprise, the team set the time attack SCION tC up with a wheelie bar, a parachute, staging brakes, and slicks. They had never had a chance to run the car with this setup before, but were very confident because the drag PRO SCION tC is a unibody FWD car, just like the time attack SCION tC.

Chris got on the grid and did a nasty burnout, but unfortunately had a drive-train failure and didn’t have the parts in time to fix the car. At that point all the team could really do was get the car configured for the time attack session coming up.

Chris went out for the first time attack session to try to verify that all the changes that the team had made were in fact intact. The SCION tC ran its first session at wastegate boost – the lowest boost possible – because the team didn’t yet know the track and they were trying to identify any problems with the car – not to mention they didn’t want to break the car.

The team found out on the first go on the road course that they were still having some braking issues. Also, there was still a drive-train issue left over from drag racing and a brand new axel needed to be repaired. The team also learned that one of the fuel pumps had shorted out, just like what had happened earlier on the skid pad on the first run. The fuse blew because one of the connectors broke and shorted out leaving them with only one fuel pump. The SCION tC is usually fine to almost 500 horsepower on one fuel pump, but when he blasted it on the straight away, Chris realized there was an issue.

They prepped the car for the second session and the WORLD Racing team worked hard to make sure all issues were taken care off. They went out on the second try and the car felt much better and proved to be successful. They ran a 1:06.6, which was the fastest time of the weekend for the FWD Modified class.

With the one fuel pump damaged on the first run, it had apparently damaged the bearings pretty bad. This ended up costing the team the engine on the next test session. But the battle for best FWD time had already been won. “We can’t win them all, but we can sure win some of them,” Chris says. “I’d like to thank my sponsors, fans, friends, and family for their unconditional support.”