Top Honors Awarded to Chris Rado and WORLD Racing

Chris Rado and WORLD Racing were extremely excited going into their first Redline Time Attack event of the season. Chris was especially excited that he was going to be driving on the huge oval track known as California Speedway.

“The team and I were very pumped up to be at this event,” says Chris, “especially coming off a win in Willow Springs last weekend.”

Chris and the WORLD Racing team were confident that they were heading to the track with a solid tC after fixing the little “gremlins” throughout the week. Knowing that Chris would be driving the oval at speeds up to around 170 mph and that a stock Scion tC was never designed to go that fast, the team had to make some modifications to make sure the car would be up for the job. And up for the job it sure was as, four sessions later, the tC left the track in one piece with the top Unlimited FWD time of the weekend.

Going around the oval for the first time, Chris wanted to make sure there were no oiling or engine problems. An oiling problem on the oval could be very dangerous, especially if an engine fails and leads one to drop fluids, this could easily make the tC loose control and at 160 plus mph, it could be really bad.

Chris went into the first session trying to get a good feel for the track and get comfortable in his machine. In this session, Chris ran a 1.53, a very respectable time, and also the 7th best time of the first session out of about 200 cars.

The WORLD Racing team still needed to make some changes as they had not pushed the tC nearly as hard as they knew they could. “I’d rather be cautious at first when we are at a new track,” says Chris. “I don’t want to push the car too hard right away and stuff it into the wall. I’d much rather creep up on the competition.”

After some suspension changes, Chris went out on the track for the second session. He ran all 1.51′s on this session – an improvement from his first session time. Chris had started to become more comfortable with the track and understand better where the braking points were.

After the second session, Chris’s time had advanced him to the fastest FWD spot. Unfortunately, Chris still had not had the chance to push the tC as hard as he wanted to due to him pulling the car out of the session early because of a broken axel. The after-market axels that hadn’t worked out so well were replaced with factory Toyota ones which WORLD Racing had used for the last season and a half. The team was pumped and ready for the remaining sessions the following day.

On Sunday, Chris and the WORLD Racing team decided to strategically utilize only the first practice session. This way they could use the time of the second session to make any necessary changes and completely verify that the engine was in tip-top shape.

“We wanted to make sure that our package was completely sound going into these last two rounds because we knew we were going to start to lean on the car,” says Chris. “We were going to push the horsepower limits, we were going to be running almost thirty-five pounds of boost, and we were going to be putting a ton of pressure on this car, so everything had to be right.”

Apparently this extra attention to detail worked out for the team, as their time for the first session of the day plummeted compared to their times from the day before. Chris had run a 1.47.3 which put him in the 5th place position, not even a tenth of a second behind Billy Johnson in the M-Workz 350Z.

The team was very excited because they knew they could still push the tC even more for the next session. “No one dreamed a front-wheel-drive would go faster than a minute fifty, and we broke that barrier by three seconds,” says Chris. “And I knew I could pick up another two or three in the next session, especially with some of the changes we would be making.”

One of the changes the WORLD Racing team would be making was to their tires. Thanks to the guys at Hankook Tires, the tC was dressed with their Hankook C91s, which according to Chris “are probably the best time attack tire out there on the market – and we were going to get the chance to run them.”

With the Scion tC being FWD, the team could use any traction advantage possible. This is why Chris and the team were so stoked to have been offered the chance to rock a pair of Hankook C91s. With the help of Paul from Hankook, the team mounted up the tires and got the car back in the staging lanes and ready for the forth session. Chris felt extremely confident that with these tires and with his high comfort level of the track, he would easily shave a few seconds off his time.

During the warm-up lap, Chris was very excited about the possibilities. The car felt amazing with its new tires; Chris could tell a big difference between the Hankooks and the tires he was running with earlier. “The Hankook’s felt like I had crazy glue on all four tires!” says Chris.

Chris had just finished the practice lap and was coming up to the straightaway and the green flag to start the hot lap. He stabbed the scramble boost button on the steering wheel to take off on the straight and unfortunately, the tC blew a boost hose. For the WORLD Racing team, the weekend and the last session had been cut short, but on a brighter side, they still managed to receive top honors in the Unlimited FWD class by almost six seconds and were 5th place overall.

“My team was amazing this weekend and was extremely excited about how we placed,” says Chris, “But as a driver, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get the chance to push it in that last session, because I really wanted to see what the WORLD Racing Scion tC could do, especially with it’s new Hankooks.”

Thanks to their drag racing experience, the WORLD Racing team has already taken all necessary provisions and utilized their knowledge to make sure what minor failures occurred over the weekend, will in no way happen again. Chris and the team are extremely excited for next weekend where they will be invading Nashville Speedway, another big NASCAR oval, for Redline Time Attack again. This time, Chris intends to let nothing stop him from pushing the WORLD Racing NOS Energy Drink Scion tC to it’s full capability in order to achieve not only a best FWD time, but a best time overall.

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