Toyota Race of Legends

-August 19, 2008

The 35th Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races presented by Toyota got off to a great start with the Scion Legends race for charity. The lineup of drivers included last year's winner, Derek Bell, along with former F1 and sports car racers like Eddie Cheever, Danny Sullivan, Johnny Herbert, Alan Jones, John Watson, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Patrick Tambay, and Alain de Cadenet, as well as current Toyota racer, Timo Glock. In all honesty it seemed like this was a joke to all the drivers and announcers. But, compared to some of the race machines there, the tC was nothing more than a pit car.


Final finishing order below with qualifying position in parentheses:

1st Timo Glock (10th)
2nd Jean-Pierre Jarier (4)
3rd Eddie Cheever (2)
4th Johnny Herbert (6)
5th Derek Bell (3)
6th Patrick Tambay (#
7th Bruce Canepa (1)
8th John Watson (11)
9th Alan Jones (5)
10th Danny Sullivan (9)
11th Alain de Cadenet (7)

I found nice spot right near the Mario Andretti hair pin which made for some great photos.



I spoke with a few of the techs and found out modifications done to these cars:
-TRD Supercharger with custom flash
-Stoptech Front BBK, OEM rears
-TRD rear sway
-“Adjustable Coilovers” Here is where they would not get specific. They told me that they were not TRD’s. They looked like Progress, but I am not 100% sure.
-All safety requirements including roll cage with integrated harness bar, fuel cut off, battery cut off, etc.



These Scion tC’s were all over the track which made for exciting racing. As the old saying goes “rubbing is racing”. Here is some of the damage that occurred from the friendly race after 8 laps :

 

OMG! those BBS

 

Ouch to those rub marks....looks like an awsome event

 

you can buff those right out

 

I hate it how toyota can do a "custom" flash on their ecu's with no problems what so ever

yet they make our lives so damm hard with their stupid factory ecu

nice pics

 

x2!

 

x3

 

x4!!!!

I dont recognize any of the names

 

These are accomplished racing drivers at a large event with expensive cars... mucking around a track in front-wheel drive econo-coupes, after all. They might as well be driving minivans.

I would have loved to go to that, though. Should have grilled them about the custom ECU!

 

hmmm.. yea.. i missed last year's monterey historics too..
just this year none of the event organizers really contacted the scion owner's like they've done in the past two events.. :?

sorta depressing..
and yea.. looks to be the same modified tCs used in the long beach grand prix pro/celeb races.. sam mods... those bbs rims... oy

here's me.. same place.. event.. 2 years ago.. (sitting in patrick dempsey's tC (at the time))

 

I'm almost positive that they're using Progress Coilovers. I remembe rit was stated somewhere for the Long Beach Grand Prix race..

 

^^ as well as their sway bar.. yah..

wait.. why does it say TRD sway bar under the OP's post?
uhh... wondering what smartbutt tech he was talkin' to..

oh shoot... just noticed the TRD S/C comment as well...
(oh i really wanna meet this "tech" guy...)

uhmm.. last i checked none of those cars had a S/C installed.. (all n/a)
i've sat in the car.. i've popped open the hood.. i've looked under the car, and i've talked to people who helped build the things as well.. so, i think i know what they've done to these tCs.. just a guess....

(and fyi, a "custom reflash".. is just the reflash necessary for the TRD s/c and anyone with one would get it...) so.. yea..... to the other poster complaining about not being able to get one or it's "difficult"... yea..

 

I have to assume that progress makes the TRD coilover and rear sway bar. So we are both right.

Cars were supercharged. I was there at this event.

The techs there told me that they used a different flash than what the general public receives from their factory dealer. I am just relaying the information gathered from the event.

 

I don't see how it's a far stretch to believe that Toyota has their own special ECU flashes that they use for race vehicles.

 

true, though all the race tCs i've seen built together... none of them had the S/C installed despite popular belief.

did you look under the hood?

(also, afaik, the roof? as i was told, none of the cars actually used in racing had the Kaminari CF roof, and the Pace car was the only one to get it... the others that were installed were fiberglass)

again, contradicting popular belief.

i will comment though, the roll cages that were custom built for all those tCs... are soooo awesome. wish i could afford something like that built.. but the TRD guy i had talked to back then did mention it was quite expensive to do ...