Nada Viva Las Vegas

San Ramon, CA – The 2021 United States Touring Car Championship started at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a one-day race event. This puts additional stress on all team and its members. True to form, everyone has somehow scrambled to get their cars ready for the season opener. No different for Rob Harper who planned to race his BMW 335i E90 BTCC Wide Body, only to find a last-minute issue that prevented him to use that car.
That meant, to go back to the beloved #28 Chevy Corvette Z06. That car is fast and sorted. However, a bit moody as well in the past. It was always a balance of either ‘go bust or get the glory’. The question was which one of the two personalities would prevail since the car sat in the garage untouched over the winter.
Rob Harper reviews his Round ONE performance:

“Crazy how this weekend went! It had all the ups & downs you'd expect from round 1. That's racing. I was running well without any issues throughout the day, turning fast laps whilst still taking it easy learning a track which I had little opportunity to learn last year due to car problems. I qualified on pole, only to lose that due to a clerical error and was relegated to having to start from the back of the field. Though not a familiar position, I knew what to do and kept my head down, driving the line and managing the nuances of the car. By lap four I was back with the leader and soon was able to pass for the lead. It was all about managing the lead at that point and took it easy the rest of the way. Unfortunately, the little red Corvette had its own idea of how this race would go and, just before the white flag, I suffered another broken timing chain and we retired from the race with one lap to go. Very unfortunate and surely not what I had anticipated. The silver lining is, that we still got points out of the weekend and that we will come back strong for the next race at Fontana in just about a week’s time.”

AutoClub Speedway at Fontana is a track that Rob is loves driving. Maybe one of his favorite tracks on the calendar. That is something exciting to look forward to!

About Red Panther Motorsport (RPM)
A leading California based professional racing team. RPM competes in the Hankook Tires United States Touring Car Championship (USTCC) race series. For more information please see and visit www.RedPantherMotorsport.com and also like us on our social media channels.