Mike Kojima posted on September 18, 2009 12:07
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| The view that the PTC field saw of Gardner's TRD supercharged Scion during the championship event. Here Gardner chases down a V8 powered CMC Stock car. As a estimate to the strength of the Scion engine and the engineering of the TRD supercharger kit, the Team JD Scion runs a stock bottom end which holds up well to brutal racing conditions with excellent reliability, pretty impressive in our book |
Unfortunately on the lst lap, the Scion’s brakes failed and an RX-8 got around Gardner who maintained second place with no brakes, despite a last lap push from the same Mini that had taken him out the day before. It didn’t take long for the team to find the brake system issue. Brake fluid was all over the right front wheel and tire. Once the wheel was off the car, the team found the culprit…a brake line had given up the ghost and ruptured, possibly punctured by a rock on the race track.
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| Gardner, giving some Spec 944'S "The Business" |
After fixing the car, Gardner and the team came up with a start strategy that heavily relied on flawless spotting on the radio. When the grid was posted, Gardner would be in the last row of the PTC class behind all the PTC and the PTB cars. However, the team had a fast car whose great strength was the race start, and it seemed like there really was a chance to take the win, despite the poor starting position. Great spotting on the radio would prove to be critical. As Gardner pulled around the last turn, his spotter yelled "green, green, green." The Scion rocketed ahead, and with each car passed, a spotter would key the microphone, yelling "clear!" Gardner knew he could move his car over as each "clear" message was relayed. This strategy worked and Gardner rocketed from last in PTC to first by the first turn!
Within a few laps, the Scion had opened up a comfortable two second lead with Gardner maintaining the cushion, he using traffic to his advantage to extend the lead over the second place RX-8. In Lap 9 of the race, a car oiled down the track, and several cars flew off course. Not long after that point, the pace car would come out, and the track was cleaned up during a full course yellow that would last three laps. Unfortunately the yellow caused Gardner’s lead cushion to disappear, as the field readied for the single-file restart.
