Scion FR-S qualified P2 in class for Saturday and Sunday PWC COTA races.
 

Tony Rivera of Vista CA unofficially qualified P2 for the Pirelli World Challenge TCA class in his #86 BrassMonkey Racing Scion FR-S and 12th overall in the combined TC, TCA and TCB field of 43 cars.

The first race of this three race weekend can be seen live Saturday morning on World Challenge TV: http://www.world-challengetv.com/ The second race will be shown live Saturday afternoon and the third race will be broadcast live online Sunday afternoon.

The races will also be shown tape delayed on CBS Sports channel the evening of March 18th.

Yes! The TC class is where they should have been all along. In a few years, hopefully people can get this car sorted enough to go after the gts class.

Qualifying times now official. FR-S second fastest behind Mazda RX-8 and ahead of Civic Si. First telecast starts at 11:05 AM eastern (10:05 CDT) time tomorrow morning.

Thanks for the heads up...I'll be watching this!

Bumping this as a reminder. The first race starts in one half hour. There is a second one later today and one tomorrow afternoon.

Are there any sports car roadracing fans out there? Tune in to cheer on the FR-S.

This is great racing. I am going to try to catch these more often.

Great race guys, was watching.

Considering building our Spec86 into a WC TCA car now!

-mike

Good race. I am not sure if he won or got second. The RX-8 broke near the finish but may have already taken the checkered flag. Either way the FR-S was stout and beat some of the more powerful TC cars as well as all the other TCA class cars. Two more races to go.

Do you have a link to the rules? Trying to find them but not much luck.

-mike

Unofficially on twitter PWC is saying the FR-S took 1st:

Nice win for Rivera, but always sad to see the class leader break down on the last lap.

http://www.world-challenge.com/image...WCRuleBook.pdf

On the World Challenge home page it is under the Drivers/Teams drop down tab.

I had a look at the general specifications for the different classes and TCA cars seem like they are only allowed mainly safety, handling and maintenance upgrades (fluids, brake pads etc.). Really impressed they were able to run those cars so hard all race.

Yeah, but the FR-S led the first half of the race so it was by no means a gimme. It will be interesting to see if the Mazda can make it back for the afternoon race.

Damn these races are addictive! Im glued to the GTS race right now, and I'm chomping at the bit for this afternoon's TC race...

why anyone would watch NASCAR over this is beyond me...:D

Ps...second race starting in a few minutes for anyone on the board right now...

http://www.world-challengetv.com/

so dope!

That GT race was awesome. Great move by Barretta on the last lap. Congratz to Johnny O'Connell for bringing the Cadillac ATS-V GT3r home in third on its maiden voyage.

2 minutes to the Touring car races. Go FR-S!

Ernie Francis' MX-5....that was painful to watch.

These races are super entertaining, my only wish is that they had some in-cockpit or even roof mounted camera coverage.

Rivera takes first in class at the second race in his FRS in TCA! Nice!

They will have roof top shots when the races air on CBS Sports. Every car has a camera on the roof. Those shots will be spliced into the race action in the tape delayed presentations.

F'ck yea!!! Scion FRS 1st place in TCA and by a huge margin!!!

Porsche Caymen is such a cheater car for TC. I know it is heavily handicapped but it still is way too much car for TC. It's better suited for GTS.

Agreed. They have the same situation over in Continental Tire Challenge where it is dominating the Street Tuner class.

^Definitely! I think in Continental Tire challenge, the Cayman's are limited to a 6000rpm rev limit. Even then, they make quick work of the ST class. In PWC, they are already 1 of 3 top contenders in GTS next to the Cameros and Mustangs. They should just keep them there. The Mustang in TC that I saw today is also another car that is way too much car for the class. The Cayman and Mustang should seriously be bumped up to GTS and kept there.

Anyways, tomorrows race starts at 4:25pm Eastern time for TC/TCA/TCB. Will be routing again for Tony Rivera!

Guy looks happy!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...61263869_o.jpg

Maybe some sponsors will now want to be a part of Brass Monkey and this team since they're doing well...cough, cough...Scion Racing...

At least Eurotech Industries is on board...

Just a heads up for those planning on catching the FR-S in Round 3 of the PWC TC race at COTA, it looks like they may be running a little ahead of schedule due to heavy rain at the Austin Tx track. I tuned in for the GT race at the appointed starting time and the race was almost half over already.

It will be interesting to see how the FR-S will do in the rain versus the front wheel drive Civic Si cars and the Kia Forte Koup cars. At last year's Mid-Ohio race, Tony Rivera finished 4th in the TC class in the FR-S but behind the TCA class winning Kia Forte Koup driven by Jason Wolfe. This year they are in the same class.

Scheduled start time is 4:25 eastern but if they start early it could be in the next 20 minutes. The telecast is currently live but nothing is happening.

They are live now.

3rd place. Fwd > Rwd in wet conditions lol.

Not bad at all...

1st, 1st, 3rd...all podium finishes :D

Very good job. The Races where good

Well, rain is just unfrozen snow and everyone knows FWD is better in snow than RWD (read that on a bunch of forums :D ) I actually thought he might have got second as the announcer called the finish before TCA had completed their last lap. You could see he was ahead of the Honda right after the checkered flag but they did not show them coming to the line. Waiting for the results to be posted. Either way, it is a great weekend for the FR-S and Tony. He will have a big lead in the points.

Yea I'm super happy with the results. Tony had all podium finishes all weekend long including yesterday's first place win. Hopefully this sets the tone for the rest of the season. Still pissed that they didn't show TCA 2nd/3rd place battle at the end. I only caught the last ten minutes of the race and was worried since it was rainy conditions the FRS was gone lol. But to my surpise the frs was 3rd and nearly held 2nd until it put on a drift show ahah. I was screaming at the screen because they only showed TCB and Shea Holbrook the whole time! Ughhh!

Still... The real battle hasn't happened yet. Waiting for the Techsport RX-8 to be ready for next round. Should be real interesting. Pray for dry next time.

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Brass Monkey Racing (I think they are in Texas) and or Tony Rivera?
@DeliciousTuning

I know that BM had a facebook page, but it looks as though it hasn't been updated in a long time:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brass...g/162862865552

I want to see if they could use any help in terms of parts, funds, etc.

A year ago I was thinking for a while about donating a hundred bucks or something to help an American FR-S formally compete. For a while, I have been really suffering from performance anxiety with my ride as I wasn't sure if it can really compete. What a relief!

The Touring Car classes do not race again until May 15-17 at Canadian Motorsports Park where they will do Rounds 4, 5 and 6. I guess they are doing it that way to keep the expenses down for these mostly privateer teams.

Hopefully, Scion and TRD will take notice of Mr Rivera's accomplishments this weekend and give him some support. They have a nice contingency program for Off Road, Midgets, Club roadracing and Solo but no mention of pro racing.

http://www.powri.com/ClientFiles/Ima...y%20Packet.pdf

Any links to VoD of the races?

There isn't any. They streamed it live online during the races while they captured video and commentary for the CBS Sports telecast on Wednesday, March 18th.
I am sure that will be a condensed version of the 3 rounds that were completed this weekend.

I am angry at the absence of Scion America in all this. Hottest selling purist sports car, but NOTHING TO SHOW FOR. Total horseshit. We had to wait for privateers like Tony to pave the way.

I hope the bean counters at Toyota will take notice of this and come out with some formally backed company cars. Pisses me off at the amount of cars they sold in North America and yet EVERY ScionRacing FRS project was a dumb fucking drift car with no FA20D4S. I want to see this car put to its paces. Sanctioned racing and wheel to wheel! TRD should just send a bunch of Griffon prepped cars over and kill it in TC class. Toyota only is the most profiting auto manufacturer...


Yea, it was straight up live.

Here's some of last years footage of the race the car entered to hold you over ahaha.
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQ2OdO5_lI"]PWC 2014 Replay of Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio TC/TC-A/TCB Round 9 - YouTube[/ame]

Interesting perspective from Rivera here about the first race:

http://www.nationalspeedsportnews.co...down-in-texas/

Sounds like it'll be close between Rivera and Foley, with the RX-8 having the advantage in acceleration and the FR-S possibly with the advantage in corners.

And a nice picture I found from last year (really cool to see an FR-S lifting its inner front tire, even if cresting a hill :D ):

http://cdn-8.motorsport.com/static/i...ony-rivera.jpg

Yeah, last year they made him run the two races at Mid-Ohio in the TC class because they did not have the rules completed for the FR-S yet nor did they have a baseline for the car's performance. That was the only place he competed last year. Now that he has a rule package for the car and is in the TCA class, hopefully, he will campaign the entire season and take home the driver's championship. It may be difficult to win the manufacturers title for TCA because I believe they score the top two cars of each brand. Unless someone joins with another Scion it will be tough to score enough points even if he wins consistently.

Maybe next year, he will add some mods and move up to TC to challenge the Caymans. I think I heard the announcers say that the MX-5 were allowed to run a 2.5L engine in TC due to the inclusion of the Cayman. I wonder if that means the FR-S will be allowed the same increased displacement?

Seriously, all they support is those damn drift cars without the FA20 motor :barf:

I'm going to keep bugging Scion here:

http://www.scion.com/contact/?siteid..._Scion_Contact

and TRD here :

TOYOTA
/SCION
/TRD CONTINGENCY AWARD PROGRAM CONTACTS

E-Mail:
kevin_kuchta@toyota.com

until they throw some parts at Tony or something, lol.

SO WHO IS WITH ME!? :cheers::burnrubber: