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Four years after it first hit showrooms, the Scion tC will finally make a showing in a professional road racing series. And no, factory optioned and equipped vehicles being tossed around Long Beach by B-list celebrities cannot be considered professional. A tC has already been heavily modified to compete in the Formula Drift series, but the peppy compact's road race profile, outside the annual celebrity race of course, has been relatively low. This weekend though, Toyota's sporty little coupe will be moving up from amateur abuse to make its big time debut in Grand-Am's KONI Challenge Series. This week's race will take place at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, OH and the tC will be part of the ST (Sport Touring) class.
The Scion's venture into the KONI series is being fueled by communications firm Jackson-Dawson, TRD and BGB Motorsports. Driver and team manager Dan (pronounced Don) Gardner has taken his Scion's setup through the NASA club ranks to prove its worth. Having already tackled that territory, moving onto a production-based national series is the next logical step for the team. In the KONI Challenge ST class, Dan and his tC will face formidable foes such as Mazda RX8s, BMW 330s and Acura TSXs. While Toyota may be competitive on the ovals, hopefully this one can do better on the curves than the company's F1 effort.
Toyota's own in-house performance division, Toyota Racing Development (TRD), has been a great help to the team this season. TRD has long been associated with both professional and grassroots racing. Several TRD parts on the JD racecar are available to all Scion owners through Scion dealerships.
"Our brand of performance parts and accessories really are meant to perform at the highest level," said Gary Boler, TRD business operations manager. "It doesn't get much higher than this in terms of production-based road racing. The tC is a great car, but it can always be made better with a few TRD components. The supercharger kit on the JD car is one great example of that."
The Scion tC will be taking on a humongous field of over 50 entries in the exciting Street Tuner (ST) Class. Cars range from Mazda RX8s, to BMW 330s...Chevrolet Cobalts to Acura TSXs. All in all, over 10 manufacturers will be vying for points.
"It will be with great pride that we see our Scion tC mixing it up at the pinnacle of road racing competition," said Steve Hatanaka, Scion auto shows and special events manager. "The KONI Challenge battles are fierce; it's going to be exciting!"
I never thought the Scion tC was a bad looking car, but it needs more stock power, big time. I wonder if that is what Scion/Toyota has up it's sleeve here.
Scion to go road racing in KONI Challenge
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