This past weekend at Button Willow Raceway marked the inaugural 2010 season opener for the Redline Time Attack series.  Button Willow is known as the proving ground for the fastest time attack cars in the United States and is the place where at last years Super Lap Battle Finals, WORLD Racing proved they were a team on a mission, after taking down the track record set by GM Racing back in 2005. After that event the team determined there was plenty left on the table to go deeper into the history books.

With the new changes made to the tC for the 2010 the WORLD Racing team and Chris Rado were very excited to get back to Button Willow to prove once again that the Scion tC racecar was the FWD car to beat. On Friday during testing Chris Rado laid down a 1:47 second lap time which was 2 seconds faster than the record.  This left WORLD Racing very optimistic that the possibility was there to run a 1:46 lap or even faster. Some small mechanical issues with the vehicle needed to be addressed after testing.

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WORLD Racing focused on these issues Saturday to ensure the racecar was fit for battle on Sunday. At the end of the day on Saturday the team decided to go out for one practice session and make sure some of those fixes actually did what they were supposed to do in the final session. The result was shaving another half second off of an already unbelievable time for Button Willow clockwise configuration 13. After that final session on Saturday the team found some additional issues that crew chief Ron Mathis felt were necessary to address before waging war. Recently the team had switched to a new fuel and it was breaking down some of the seals in the engine, resulting in some oil leaks that had never cropped up before. This is a serious issue especially when oil was getting on our new Continental racing slicks and our Brembo brakes causing traction and braking problems. The team quickly got a handle on the problems at hand and had the tC prepped and ready to race in the first practice session Sunday morning. “The car had grip that I hadn't felt before at this track” said Rado after the first practice session on Sunday morning, “and from the data received from our telemetry we believed that our tC could possibly run a 1:44 even at conservative power levels.”
       
Expecting our next lap to be our best yet, Rado went out on a tear, but as he rounded the final corners Chris got into the braking zone approaching Star Mazda turn and the brakes just didn't slow the car down, Rado drove straight off (luckily) on to another paved portion of racetrack. After bringing the car in the pits and determining that the passenger side CV joint had exploded and coated the entire passenger side brake in grease. Chris noted with a laugh “CV Grease doesn't work very well as a friction compound in racing” and at that point completely understood why his tC didn't have the brakes needed to make the turn at Star Mazda. The team then quickly determined the cause of failure, changed the CV joint and readied the car for the first “official” time attack session of the season. Since the session was at 2:40pm track temps had gone up over 60° and the air temperature had risen over 30° from their previous outing that morning, this meant that the car now wouldn't have the mechanical grip or aerodynamic down force it had in the earlier session. Nevertheless, Rado was able to run a 1:47 lap and it was still faster than their previous record. The team wasn't satisfied and we're sure if they went out for the final session with a little more power and a few more tweaks we could run a 1:46.
 

The car was ready again for the final session and even though the temperatures persisted Rado and the team were able to run a 1:46.730, which was 3.1 seconds overall quicker than their previous record and secure the first super modified win of the season. This lap would put the WORLD Racing Scion tC in the record books with a very elite few vehicles that have run a 1:46 or quicker at Button Willow. In addition to running a 1:46 and finishing first in super modified the WORLD Racing team also finished second overall behind the Sierra Sierra all wheel drive Mitsubishi Evolution. Rado and the WORLD Racing team are elated with their performance at Button Willow after coming to the track hoping to run in the 1:47s and somehow dipping the car into the 1:46 territory. Chris says “after a long weekend running the car and seeing the possibilities I truly believe that we can be a contender for the overall at Button Willow and maybe even run a 1:43.” The team isn't back at Button Willow until November for the Super Lap Battle finals but you can guarantee that when November comes, the race will surely be a battle not to be missed.
 
  In less than two weeks the team will be in Phoenix at the Super Lap Battle season opener and Modified Ultimate Tuner Shootout at Firebird International Raceway in Avondale Arizona. This next event is a combination of drag racing, time attack, dyno challenge, and autocross. All these events will be competed in with one vehicle, and a FWD has never placed in the top five overall. With this said WORLD Racing is going for the gold and trying to do the unthinkable and take the overall win. Stay tuned because Arizona is right around the corner and the guys at WORLD Racing are up to the challenge.
 
As always, you can keep up with Rado and the boys @ www.WORLD-racing.com