Toyo Tires Dominates Longest Endurance Racing Event in North America

After a year of close collaboration, Toyo Tires and the Flying Lizard Motorsports team completely dominated the longest endurance racing event in North America, the USAF 25-Hours of Thunderhill. The Audi R8 LMS used by the Toyo Tires/Flying Lizard team covered a distance of 1, 973 miles on Toyo Proxes slicks and won the 690 lap race by a significant margin of 35 laps in comparison to the team that came second. The team totally dominated the race in which 59 cars participated. Consisting of four drivers – Darren Law, Johannes van Overbeek, Guy Cosmo and Tomonobu Fujii, the team also won the class ES with all drivers driving double stints.

From the beginning the team dominated the race with the first driver, Law taking the team from sixth place to the third position by the end of Turn 1. Though the race started out in dry conditions, the final 12-hours witnessed tough weather conditions ranging from a light drizzle to heavy rains. The drivers belonging to the Toyo Tires / Flying Lizard team had to constantly vigilant regarding the weather, the challenging terrain and the varying closing speeds when overtaking the multiple classes of cars.

Commenting on the victory Marc Sanzenbacher, senior manager, motorsports, Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp said that ever since the collaboration with the Flying Lizard team was announced, the focus was on winning and with this win, that promise has been fulfilled. The combination of Toyo Proxes race slicks and the Audi R8 LMS easily tackled ecery challenge the team faced in the race and resulted in a practically flawless performance.

This is the first official race that the Flying Lizard team has participated in since joining hands with Toyo Tires and the victory marks a promising start. Both Toyo Tires and the Flying Lizard Motorsports spent the full season working jointly on the development of the racing slicks with the outcome being the phenomenal performance of the Proxes slicks.

According to one of the drivers, Law, the race was really challenging with the drivers during the day and night driving and during wet and dry conditions. The team not only finished first but brought the car home in perfect condition. The car won in its class and also took the overall title. The team is eagerly looking forward to defending its win in the next season.

Driver Van Overbeek was really impressed by the Toyo tires. Over the long distance the team covered during the race, they did not experience even a single puncture. The tires provided good balance and an outstanding performance, especially when it came to the rain tires.

He concluded, “Hats off to Toyo Tires for delivering a really good tire. Hats off to Flying Lizard for putting together yet another race winning car.”