Toyota Etios Motor Racing Car : First Drive

Motorsports is finally coming into its own in India and while our boys have been at it for the past few decades, the lack of manufacturer support was always a big hurdle. As far as the bikes are concerned, TVS was always a prominent pillar but then Yamaha, Honda and even Mahindra jumped in taking it far beyond what the privateers could have managed. The same stands for car racing as well and with Volkswagen storming in with the hugely successful Polo R Cup, Indian drivers got the stepping stone to International racing series that they had been waiting for. 

But the Polo Cup has evolved quite a bit since its first year in 2010 and the 2012 version of the series goes super high-tech with the cars putting out way more power than they ever did and the manual gearbox being chucked out for a DSG one. That has again left a huge gap for youngsters who are still predominantly in their karting days and are looking to graduate to saloon cars. 

These are kids who aspire to be India’s top racing drivers someday but are still looking for guidance to make that one big step into the big bad world of International motorsport. Just when it seemed like there was nothing left on the manufacturer platter for these rookies, Toyota has stepped in with the Etios Motor Racing Trophy and this is according to us, one of the best things that could have happened to grassroots level motorsports in the country.

The Etios? Seriously?

Now that’s the first question that really strikes anyone who hears of the EMR Championship that is set to debut in 2013 as a full-fledged season-based racing series. While the Etios comes about as nothing but a docile family car, it becomes extremely difficult to fathom the tame sedan in full racing guise. But if you really look at it closely, you’ll understand the logic behind choosing the Etios as the base for the entry-level racing series.

Even in stock form, the Etios has always been one of the best handling sedans in its class and its light weight helps it further in getting enough performance from its 1.5 litre petrol engine to put a smile on your face. Put it through the racing car prototyping phase and the end result is something that you would never have imagined. 

The Etios Motor Racing car is plain production Etios underneath which has obviously been stripped of every bit of unnecessary equipment on the inside. So the rear bench is gone along with the passenger seat and a whole lot of other comfort and convenience features to get the weight down to just over 800kg. In fact, from the driver’s seat you can see all the way back to the boot lid. In comes a roll cage and a racing bucket seat with a four-point harness and race steering wheel.

While all of the prototyping was done at Toyota’s in-house skunkworks ‘TRD’, the final cars that the selected drivers will race will be prepared in India by none other than Leelakrishnan – the multi-Championship winning tuner based down South. The Toyota Etios race car is currently going through some final testing phases and benchmarking of the Indian-made cars to the one prototyped at TRD in Japan.

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The challenge was big for the boffins at TRD – while they had to convert what is essentially a family sedan into a racing car, they had to keep in mind that this is going to be one machine that needs to be cheap to prep. Dynamically, the EMR prototype also needed to be as close to a real racing car as possible, but yet adequately user friendly to allow youngsters to be comfortable racing in them. This is a car that is meant to teach a whole new generation of drivers the fine craft of racing so they can grow and graduate on to bigger and better things in the future with their fundamentals in place. It’s much like the job of a pre-primary school teacher – unless the very base of a student’s knowledge isn’t sound, there’s no point in everything that will follow. 

The EMR cars will be most of the selected drivers’ first exposure to real racing and Toyota had to make sure it is perfect. And they have. Along with the restructured chassis, the Race Etios also gets a revamped suspension setup to make it stiffer for better cornering. The brake discs have been left untampered with, but the fronts do get better brake pads with more bite. The car runs on MRF Z.L.O. slick racing rubber while the stock power steering unit has been retained. The engine has been left as stock as possible with a new exhaust system coming into play which doesn’t really up the power by too much over the rated 90-something horses but gives the docile Etios an ethereal snarl in its exit note. Of course all of that will be wrapped up in a super racy paint job and race livery.

But does it go like a race car?

The first time you get into the Etios race car, you’re actually quite surprised with some of the details that TRD has left unchanged – the seat for example, retains the stock ‘lift-lever-to-slide-forward’ adjustment mechanism. The steering wheel itself is a race wheel but the electronic power steering setup has remained unaltered. Toyota has even left the air-conditioning fully functional in the car for those hot days spent racing in Chennai! Strapped into the bucket seat though, your outlook changes and it does feel like any other race-prepped saloon car out there. 

Blip the throttle and the exhaust tips roar with healthy snarl which only amplifies through the gears. Some drivers might find the suspension a tad too stiff, but those who like keeping their setup more towards the harder side will feel totally at home in the Etios race car. There’s an endless supply of data making its way from the car to your brain through the hip and you feel every bit of hop, skip and bump that the car goes through – a rather vital detail considering that the race car isn’t very powerful and that being ahead will depend extensively on understanding the car’s handling.

The slick tyres have awesome grip and mid-corner stability is pretty good. As with any front-wheel drive car, as long as you have the throttle included in all the action through the corner, you’re safe but the moment you let go of it, the Race Etios will snap back at you. That said, we found only two things that we’d really love for Toyota to take care of before going ahead with the debut race in 2013, or even before the exhibition races that are scheduled for this year! 

The stock power steering makes for very little feedback coming to the driver through the steering wheel and that can be quite scary sometimes when you’re going fully committed through a corner trying to hit the apex. We’d have preferred if the wheel was weighed down a bit more and that would make for some interesting driving character. Also, the stock engine setup will be overrun by driving talent very quickly and the competitors will demand more performance. Apart from that, the Race Etios is as good as any race car I’ve ever driven and in fact even better because it never once loses focus on the group of drivers it will help train right down at the grassroots level.

Great thought and even better execution has been put into the EMR prototype and that’s nothing short of what we’d have expected coming from Toyota. The car’s good but we’ll need to wait and see if the rest of the infrastructure is as good as well – after all, it’s not about just once race, but a full Championship. It was a rather hot day in Chennai at the MMST at Sriperumbudur and not once did we turn the air-conditioning on – because that would be blasphemy! Toyota, take off the air con – you need as much weight saved as possible and think about a hydration system for the drivers instead. After all, real racing cars don’t have air conditioning!