Ken Gushi
A crash and an issue with power at Round 1 left Ken Gushi and his Scion tC out of Top 32. Take that event, and add it to last season's mechanical woes, stemming from being the first tC ever converted to RWD, and Ken's had a rough year and some change. Ranked 33rd, if the RS-R team could boot the gremlins, we can only imagine how well Ken would perform.
Round 2 was the best event for our team, yet. For the first time, we had minimal mechanical issues and were able to get past the Top 16. In fact, the tC ran really strong all weekend. Just one thing went wrong: power steering. My steering rack blew out its seals after we added more angle. The same thing happened during a test session a few weeks back at Horse Thief Mile at Willow Springs Raceway, but we thought it was because of the crash at Long Beach.
Drifting can be quite hard (sometimes impossible) without steering assist, so thank God I had some practice without power steering. I was ready! During practice on Thursday, I drove the car without power steering and found it to be much harder than I remembered at Horse Thief. Why? Because the drift course at Road Atlanta is a hand-brake entry, while at Horse Thief, it's a clutch-kick entry. Eventually I got it down and was able to drive the tC as if it had power steering. Ranked 33, the last thing I needed was not qualifying again.
On my first Qualifying pass, I thought it best to take it a bit conservative and get a decent score, and push harder on my second run. Going into Turn 1, I had a lot of angle, smoke and impact, but at the second inner clipping point, I spun out and got a zero. Terrible! Now my second run had all the pressure.
With my original plan scratched, I took it extremely conservative for the second Qualifying run. I did not want to make the same stupid mistake. I got a 72 and qualified 17th. Not bad, but worse than expected--at least we were in the Top 32.
Compared to Qualifying, the heavier turn-in from the lack of power steering made tandems much harder. So when practice began for the Top 32, I only waited in the follow line. Tandem practice went well and I finished off the day with a practice run with my first competition, Takatori Michihiro.
Top 32 started and I was excited. My first match against Takatori was close, but I managed to beat him after a One More Time. Top 16 was against Tanner and his Scion tC. On the first run, I was on the follow lap and I nearly stalled behind him on entry. When I lead, I could not stop the car fast enough and Tanner hit my rear wheel and spun. I took the advantage and moved on. In the Great 8, I was up against Ryan Tuerck. Again, on the follow lap, I made a mistake and slightly straightened out which gave the advantage to Ryan. He ended up moving on and I was eliminated.
Overall, I am happy with the RS-R Scion tC and the way it is progressing. Before Round 3, we will be testing different spring rates and other alignment set-ups.
RS-R
www.RS-R.com
Scion Racing
www.SCIONRACING.com
TOYO TIRE
www.TOYO.com
By Carter Jung
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