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tC Race Car : Status Report Week 1 Scion tC’s are everywhere these days – cruising the streets, at the drag strip, on display at import car shows, and even tearing up the track at Time Attacks. So when we heard about the next place you’ll be seeing a tC, we had to jump onboard to be a part of it. 
Modified Reports: Week 4 | Week 3 | Week 2 | Week 1
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 Professional road racing, touring car racing to be exact, is the next destination for the tC. Built and run my Marshall Pruett’s MPME team in partnership with Scion, Modified’s Senior Editor Dave Pratte, a long-time road racer himself, will be behind the wheel in the tC in the upcoming 25 Hours of Thunderhill endurance race this December, and in the car for some SCCA SPEED World Challenge Touring Car events in 2008. We’ll be covering Dave’s efforts and exploits in the first pro road racing Scion ever built and keeping tabs on his 25 Hour driving teammates Tanner Foust, Gary Sheehan, Mark Hotchkis, and young gun Matt Varsha. One of the aspects that interested us about this project is the unique engineering solutions required to build a tC for professional road racing. There will be as many TRD parts in use as possible given the bulletproof nature of these OE high performance goodies, but there are a ton of other areas of the tC that no one has developed serious go-fast solutions required if we’re going to take on the big boys from RealTime Acura and Tri-Point Mazda. TRD’s big brake kit, LSD, and quick-shift unit are being used for the 25 Hour race and we’ll be using the TRD Supercharger in World Challenge next year, but for the 25 Hour race we’ve opted for the turnkey and proven turbo kit made by Turbonetics. Stay tuned, because we’ll be rolling out a bunch of online features on the build of the car and the custom solutions that come out of it. Moton is making our shocks, TC Design has done all the fabrication—an incredibly stiff but light roll cage, installation of our endurance fuel cell, fitted air jacks, cockpit adjustable blade anti-roll bars, camber plates, monoball suspension, and geometry correction pieces to help with the 3” minimum ride height. Talk about trick! ST Consulting is working on a complete Motec engine, chassis, and data loom that replace the complete OE loom. They’ll also be tuning the tC’s engine with the Motec ECU—the car will run the 25 Hour race with drive-by-wire throttle, VVT cam control, traction control, and a number of other electronic advancements. Kognition Design is making custom carbon body panels for most of the car, a splitter, roof, and have even knocked 30lbs out of each door with carbon skins. Best of all, a lot of Kognition’s hard work will lead to new and seriously lightweight carbon products becoming available to any and all Scion tC owners out there who are serious about weight loss. BFGoodrich new R1 super sticky competition tire will be wrapped around Motegi Racing’s seriously lightweight 17x8’’ Tracklite wheels, and a SPEC Clutch and Flywheel have taken an amazing 10lbs off of the stock clutch and flywheel. From what we’ve seen so far the R1’s have been extremely impressive in Time Attacks this year and also last forever—just what you need for an endurance race. So while there’s a ton of pro racing stuff involved with this car and program, there’s also a huge aftermarket influence, and a lot of labor required that frankly, you can do to your own car to prepare it for a Time Attack, HPDE, or SCCA club race. We hope to show you how to make that jump from dreaming about getting out onto the track to following what we’re doing and applying those lessons to your own car. We’re still signing sponsors for the MPME-owned and run car, but as they come on board, we’ll tell you all about them. Keep track of our progress and more build stories, videos, and photo galleries here and be sure to check out the official site for the team and car, www.tctouringcar.com Its a few days away from being ready, but it’s the perfect place to email us with questions or advice on how to get yourself out of your garage and onto your local racetrack, and to learn more about the car, drivers, and partners involved. To wet your appetite for what’s to come, be sure to check out the ‘Stripper Video’ on our main page, where the team from MPME guts our tC in preparation for the roll cage fabrication. See some pictures in our gallery. To discuss sponsorship opportunities on the tC for the 25 Hour race and World Challenge in '08, contact Marshall Pruett at marshall@marshallpruett.com
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