Toyo Rubber Gets to Grips with UK Motorsport

Toyo Tyres is forging ahead with its links to the gripping world of UK motorsport.

The Japanese performance tyre specialists announced its Motorsport Programme for 2004 at the annual Autosport exhibiton at the NEC in January.

The three major developments surround the ERA (English Racing Automobiles), Deronda and Dragon Sports Cars which were all on show in the race pavilion sporting Toyo rubber.

ERA build superb race car kits which are road legal and racing in their own championships under the auspices of the BARC and in a bid to keep costs down competitors will all use Toyo Proxes T1S.

The T1S has been homogulated into the rules as a tyre which is safe to race on, giving exciting performance but retaining its road legality, thus making it cheaper to buy sets for race days which will be expected to last.

The Deronda F400 machine is based on a VW Audi 1.8 litre turbo engine generating 210 bhp and these cars too are now being made with Toyo’s Proxes T1S as standard. Designed mainly for track day usage the F400 is essentially a high performance road car built to new racing specifications.

And the triple Toyo whammy comes in the shape of Dragon Sports Cars, under the watchful eye of Bill Conway, well known in the Rally world as a mechanical genius who is now manufacturing to his own specifications.

The Dragons will run on Toyo’s Proxes R888 racing rubber, which is also road legal and first choice for many performance car owners.

Mike Rignall, Toyo’s dynamic marketing manager who runs the firm’s motorsport programme in the UK said: “When the market is right we like to get involved with special projects such as these and we are always on the look out for new opportunities.

“There is no commercial gain for Toyo in this, but the confidence shown in our tyres by these highly respected manufacturers reinforces our position as performance tyre specialists who are not going to break any racing team’s bank.

"We will be following their progress closely as we strive to keep the cost of UK motorsport down,” he added.

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