Chris Rado and His WORLD Racing
Team Debuts Radical New Scion tC Race Car
By Chris Harrington
August 4, 2006 – Reading Pa. The NDRA event at Atco Raceway in New Jersey on July 29th and 30th saw the first shakedown runs for Sport Compact racer Chris Rado’s radical new Scion tC. The Pro-FWD race-car, sponsored by Scion, WORLD electronics, WORLD Motorsports, ACT, JE Pistons, Bosch, Weismann and Goodridge, represents another huge step forward in racing technology by the WORLD Racing team.
“The car was just completed in the past few days.” Rado explained. “We literally made the first ever pass a few minutes before qualifying started. It’s going to take a few more runs before we can get the new car dialed in and performing properly but we have a first-rate crew and we’re making huge steps in the right direction every time we run the car.”
Crew Chief Shane Tecklenburg was more than satisfied with the progress that the team made with what is a completely new car: “We are all very excited with the results that we have achieved this weekend. We were working on the car right up to minutes before the first qualifying session and Bobby Evans from NOPI kindly allowed us to make a single shake-down pass before the qualifying session started.”
With no time for testing prior to the event and a brand new car, expectations were low but in the first qualifying session Chris Rado blasted the Scion tC to a remarkable 8.90 second pass at 158 MPH.
“We decided to make a really gentle run at low boost and using minimal revs just to make sure that the car wasn’t going to do anything strange.” Rado explained. “Everything worked the way we had hoped and the car went straight down the middle of the track. The next step is to gradually raise the boost and produce some real power. I have to thank my crew for working so hard to get the car ready. Shane Tecklenburg, Gary Kubo, Rob Miller, Kurt Siebels, Eric Plebani, Tyler Cooley and Ariel Rosenthal all made a massive effort to complete the new car. It’s a testament to the skill, knowledge and sheer hard work of the guys that the car is so good right out of the box.”
After successfully completing the first qualifying pass, the new car made a second qualifying pass, beat James Jones in the first round of eliminations, but then ran into a minor electronic glitch in the burn-out box immediately before the second round of eliminations and had to withdrawal from that pass. Chief Mechanic Gary Kubo explained that “we were able to diagnose the electronic glitch issue within minutes of returning to the pits and the car will be ready to go for the next event.”
“We are very happy with the initial performance of the car” said Tecklenburg. “Everything worked the way it was supposed to and we collected a lot of data that will help us to get the car perfected in testing. Taking a share of third place at the debut event with our new car is not bad and I’m sure we will be the team to beat in our class very soon.”
The next event the WORLD Racing team will be attending is NDRA New England which will be held at the New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire on August 5 and 6, 2006.
For more information on the WORLD Racing team go to: www.world-racing.com.