In the motorsports arena, Toyo Tires continually strives for excellence, while demonstrating its diversity in the sport.
During the 2015 racing season, Team Toyo’s Kyle LeDuc was crowned Pro 4 Class Champion in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series (LOORRS), making him back-to-back champ. His 900-horsepower No. 99 Monster Energy / Toyo Tires Ford F-150 relied on Toyo Open Country M/T-R tires for a record-breaking 12-wins-in-a-row.
On the asphalt, Toyo Tires engineers collaborated with Flying Lizard Motorsports to develop new Toyo Proxes Slicks for road racing. The result, an overall win at North America’s longest endurance racing event — the USAF 25-Hours of Thunderhill. In both dry and wet conditions, the No. 45 Toyo Tires / Flying Lizard Audi R8 LMS covered a distance of 1,973 miles in 690 laps and finished with a winning margin of 35 laps over the second place finisher.
Off-Road Super Team Expands in 2016
Championship-winning racers, Robby Gordon, BJ Baldwin and Kyle LeDuc will continue to lead Team Toyo in off-road racing in 2016. Between the three, championships have been won for Toyo Tires in SCORE-International Off-Road Racing, LOORRS, Best In The Desert, and Stadium SUPER Trucks (SST.) Significant overall wins have also included the Baja 500 and Baja 1000 races in SCORE-International Off-Road Racing.
Joining Team Toyo this season are Baja 1000 winner, Gustavo (Tavo) Vildósola, Jr., and 2015 Stadium SUPER Truck series champion, Sheldon Creed. During Vildósola’s first outing on Toyo Open Country M/T-R tires in December, he won overall in the Henderson 250 Best In The Desert off-road race in Nevada. He will drive his trophy truck in both SCORE-International and Best In The Desert off-road races. The youngest driver of Team Toyo at 18, Creed competed in the Dakar rally earlier this month with Robby Gordon and will race in the full 2016 SST season, and in select LOORRS races.
Road Racing
Toyo Tires recently renewed its longtime partnership with National Auto Sport Association (NASA), extending its coverage of the series through the 2020 racing season. Since 2002, Toyo Tires has been the Official Tire of NASA, its Proxes line of competition tires being spec for numerous classes.
The Toyo Proxes RR two-groove DOT competition tire can be found in classes including: Spec Miata, Spec Iron, Honda Challenge, Spec E30, the recently added Spec Z, and the revolutionary new NASA Prototype (NP01).
In addition to NASA, PCA (Porsche Club of America) road racers now have an additional class where Toyo Tires is the spec tire. For 2016, Spec Cayman (SPC class) now uses the Toyo Proxes RS1™ full slick competition tire which has proven itself in NASA Pro Racing, and in 24-hour races such as Nürburgring, Spa and Dubai.
Toyo Tires is also presenting sponsor of The Cadillac Challenge, the first and only race series exclusively for Cadillac.
“Toyo Tires prides itself on delivering race-winning technology accessible to both professional and amateur racers,” said Amy Coleman, senior director of marketing, Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. “Whether using our Open Country products for off-road racing, or Proxes tires in road racing, teams and competitors can count on a Toyo Tires product to deliver both durability and podium results.”
To learn more about Team Toyo drivers, and about the full line of tires for both competition and street use, log onto www.toyotires.com.
