Kumho Tires Sets Up Shop For Traxxas Off-Road Championship Series Season Opener
- Downtown Fort Worth, Tx
- Kumho team hand grooving a tire
- Kumho team hard at work
- Mounting a race tire
- Under the city lights downtown Fort Worth
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., May 15, 2009— Kumho Tires Motorsports team rolled into Texas and set up shop in preparation for the inaugural season TORC race at Texas Motor Speedway. With a long off-season in the rearview mirror Kumho looks to make a run for the Championship with some of the world’s most competitive drivers in the off-road racing community.
The weekend activities kicked off Thursday with a meet and greet in downtown Fort Worth, where trucks were on display for the public to get up close and personal to the ground pounding machines. Many drivers and teams were represented and welcomed the opportunity to interact with the fans and answer questions about man and machine.
The motorsports team shows up days before the event to mount and hand carve the dedicated race tires that are an evolution of Kumho’s Road Venture MT. Initially the Road Venture MT, AT, and HT were used when Kumho got involved in off-road racing in 2001. Over the years the engineers have worked new technology into the compound and construction which has evolved into a highly developed race tire with one thing in mind, winning.
“The actual races are a very small part of the program,” said Brian Robertson, Kumho’s off-road racing coordinator. “The carvers spend a lot of time looking at the track conditions to hand groove the best pattern for maximum grip. It isn’t always the guy with the fastest truck that wins, you have to have a tire that will outlast and outperform the competition when you cross the finish line.”
As the season begins, Kumho Tire Motorsports team is ready for the challenge that lies ahead. With eight races on the schedule the team will need to keep pace with the tremendous amount of work that goes with supporting professional off-road racing. If past success is any measure of what lies ahead, the guys will tell you time and time again that it’s all worth it.
The TORC series will include eight race weekends, kicking off May 15 at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. For more information, visit the TORC web site at www.torcseries.com.
