THE TUNDRA

Rod raced the Tundra during the ’99 and 2000 season of the CORR series. It dominated the more powerful Ford- and Chevy-powered trucks, winning six of the 10 races. This truck was the only one on the grid running a manual transmission, and Rod told us that the team had it dialled so it would beat the autos off the line. Running a cast-iron 5.0-litre Toyota V8, it makes 474kW, up against 595kW pushrod engines. Rod believes power is not always the winner and weight is more important: “We ran lighter than everybody else just because of our chassis design and suspension. Because we ran a multivalve engine, we had to run another 2.5 pounds per cubic inch than the pushrods. So, we [had] … quite a penalty to pay, but it turned out all the other guys were over[weight] and couldn’t get down to the minimum, and we ended up carrying 600 pounds of ballast to bring it up to weight, but it allowed us to put that weight exactly where we wanted it, down low.”