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RoC: Tanner Foust’s Wednesday Blog
Written by: SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com   
11/04/2009
Beijing (CHN)
 
(SPEED's Supercars Exposed host Tanner Foust is in China taking part in his second Race of Champions event, representing the United States. The open-wheel, endurance racing, rallying and drifting ace will be filing daily blogs from the RoC exclusively for SPEEDtv.com.)

Our first competition in the 2009 Race of Champions went fairly well. As the representatives for Team USA, Travis Pastrana and I had the honor to go up against other drivers representing their respective countries or regions, and we came close to winning, but not close enough.
Foust got up to speed quickly in the RoC Buggy against Team Germany's Sebastian Vettel, but lost by 2/10ths the winner of last weekend's Dubai F1 race. (RoC) » More Photos

We got by the very difficult Scandinavian and French teams, to go into the semi-finals against Germany. After winning the past two Nations Cup events, I guess seeing Germany there once again wasn’t much of a surprise…and we got to go head-to-head with Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.

Sounds easy, right?...

Travis narrowly lost to Vettel, who is clearly still on fire from his win at the Dubai F1 race last weekend. I managed to squeeze out Schumacher, which I’m told is only the second time he’s lost a round in RoC competition. When I went up against Vettel, he beat me by 2/10th of second; we were stuck in the semi-final round and Germany went on to take their third Cup.

Vettel and I did our heat in a new car, the 2-seat ‘RoC Buggy’ as they call it, and it was a lot of fun. It has a Suzuki Hayabusa engine, a sequential transmission, but like I said, it was a new car to us in the competition.

My downfall was that it took me a about three or four corners to learn its characteristics, while it maybe took Sebastian two or three corners to do the same thing, and that was the difference in the race right there. He had a good lead on the first lap, I caught back up on the second lap, but it wasn’t enough to make up my initial deficit and that was it.
The size and magnificence of the Bird's Nest structure has to be seen, says Foust. (Tanner Foust) » More Photos

If you’d told me I’d one day find myself in China racing against Michael Schumacher at the RoC and coming away as the victor, I’m not sure I’d have believed it was possible. I guess there’s no shame in beating one of my racing heroes, and in the context of an event like this such things are possible, but let’s be honest, I won’t be able to match a Vettel or Schumacher on outright speed in any major racing car; they are the world’s top drivers for a reason.

Where I have to be quick is to adapt to the different cars they throw us out in during this event, and that’s something that I do in virtually all of my jobs. I have to jump into so many different cars for the TV show and other forms of racing I compete in, so maybe that’s what allows me to get up to speed in an RoC car that might have the brake bias totally opposite of what I’m used to, or that uses gravel tires on the tarmac inside the Bird’s Nest (rather than tarmac tires on the tarmac surface…) and then adapt to a WRC Ford, an X-Bow, a Scirocco, an Opel…there’sa degree of madness involved in this event, and I absolutely love it.

The ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ phrase would probably fit me best
in this event, and that’s the only thing I bring here that is different than the experiences of most of the guys.
While the F1 drivers and many of the others here have dedicated themselves to just one discipline and have taken themselves to the pinnacle of their sport. I can only hope I’m able to use my experience to adapt quicker and make up some time that way.


Regardless of how I end up in this event, I can’t begin to describe how cool this competition is. It’s beyond measure. I kind of feel like a guy that’s won the lottery – like I was pulled out of the stands – and had the winning ticket number and got to come down and race against all of these icons of motorsport. It’s absolutely surreal. Getting to know some of them has been the biggest treat, and then to find out they’re genuinely good people makes it even better.

The betting has been active as I thought it might be. I lost a dollar to Travis, but I’d prefer not to say how…

Next up will be the individual competitions. It’s a fairly complex scenario, but they but you in groups of four, and you have to race your way out of that group to move into the semi-finals. I’ll be with two Chinese drivers and Italian Le Mans and F1 driver, Emanuele Pirro. Pirro’s probably the oldest guy here, but is certainly the most energetic. After the finals, we’ll be off to the bar with the rest of the group to tell some tall tales.
Jenson and Andy Priaulx have been a blast to hang out with, says Tanner. And they love their new hats! (Tanner Foust) » More Photos

The hotel the Race of Champions organizers have us in is within the Olympic compound, and it’s just stunning. There’s a bit of a language barrier with our hosts, but that was to be expected, so the drivers tend to stick pretty closely together throughout the day and when it comes time to wind down. I must say, there’s something pretty cool about sitting in the bar doing shots with Jenson Button and Markus Gronholm…

A lot of the guys have just finished their racing season and don’t have to be on the 5a.m. gym routine anymore, so it has been fun to see them cut loose a bit. Everybody keeps it professional; we’re here to put on a show for the fans, but the fun and camaraderie away from the track has been just as big a part of the show for all of the drivers involved.

I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow – the finale should be entertaining, to say the least!

Follow Tanner over the holidays on SPEED's Dream Ride, and on his show Supercars Exposed.

Learn more about Tanner at http://tannerfoust.com, his drifting program at ScionRacing.com, and follow his progress online at the Race of Champions on Radio Le Mans.
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