Walls are Rock Solid

San Ramon, CA – After two wins in a row by Dave Brown at Thunderhill Raceway, and Gary Trudeau at Sonoma Raceway, the hopes for a third in a row were naturally high at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA for the #52 Hyundai Genesis Coupe with its driver pairing. This time, it would again be Gary Trudeau to wheel the car.

Gary showed well in the Saturday Warm-Up system, whilst the competition was fighting ‘car gremlins’. The incredibly high ambient temperatures that weekend sure did their part to provide issues to some cars and competitors. FP2 saw Gary have a problem in the bumpy, decreasing radius braking zone of Turn 9. He did everything he could to keep the car from going off track, but with what was later found to be an ABS system fault, he unfortunately had impact to the tech pro barriers and tire wall on the front left. This meant that some repair was needed to field the car for United States Touring Car Championship Round 3.

The splitter was fixed and strengthened with parts of a cut up Sunoco gas barrel, (talk about ingenuity!) and the front valence was held together with plenty of 200MPH tape. A great testament to the crew at Red Panther Motorsport, who had the car ready by Saturday late afternoon without missing a session.

Sunday morning warm-up and Gary’s power steering failed. A follow-on issue from the impact. Gary Sheehan helped with a spare part to get the car fixed. That is sportsmanship right there! Thank you!

Come race time, and after a new CoolBoxx system was installed to keep the driver cooled down in the sweltering heat, Gary Trudeau and Gary Sheehan changed positions multiple times during the race. Fun to watch. Unfortunately, this time the outcome wasn’t a win, but an important second place for the Championship battle.

Gary Trudeau reviews his Round THREE performance:
“Fontana is a great track. Unfortunately, I had an incident with ‘kissing’ the wall at T9 when my ABS system failed. I was able to keep it from hitting the wall too hard and the fantastic crew we have at Team Red Panther Motorsport got me a car back that was ready to race! Thank you to my Car Chief Dave Brown with Mechanic Nikolas Brown and everyone else that helped getting this done. Come Sunday, it was a neck-on-neck race between Gary Sheehan and myself, with the better outcome for the GoGoGear car. I am glad to get the Championship points for a good second place. We will be back strong for Sonoma Raceway in August!”


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 and has won multiple class Championships. For more information, please see and visit www.RedPantherMotorsport.com and like us on our social media channels.