The House Always wins in 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 any team and its members since everyone has somehow scrambled to get their cars ready for the season opener.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway traditionally was a good ‘hunting ground’ for our driver Reto Baumann and his newly updated #53 VW Jetta 2.0 GLI DSG. The car is close to being built to the Super Touring class specifications it competes in. Reto was excited to get back behind the wheel of the car to see how these improvements will help with lap times and stack up to the competition

Reto Baumann reviews his Round ONE performance:
“Every new season it is a journey to get ready for the season opener. No different for 2021. Over the winter, we worked on several improvements to the car, building it ever so close to the class specifications. And I had a good feeling right away. We ran at the front in FP1, even though I was still getting used to all the changes. We topped the time sheet in FP2, running both sessions on very old tires. In qualifying we unfortunately had some issues with traffic and especially with cars that had gone off and brought lots of rocks back onto the track. My fastest lap was impacted by this. Nevertheless, we qualified the car well claiming a first row starting position. I was stoked for the race, having mounted brand new Hankook slicks and also took some downforce out for better straight-line speed. All was working for us – Only for the car to lose power at the green flag, having to retire from the race. Not the start we were looking for, but at least we know what the issue was. The positives are still that we are on the right track performance wise and that the improvements show good signs.”

After the race, when Red Panther Motorsport had a good look at the car, it was found that on the quali cool down or the race warm-up lap, a rock must have hit one of the intercooler hose clamps right on the clamp screw and loosened it enough to lose power. A freaky thing to happen, since the car performed so well and without any issues up to that time.

Now we look forward to the next race coming up swiftly at AutoClub Speedway in Fontana. Let’s run that NASCAR oval!


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.