Founded in February, 1993, by rally car builder and technician Murray Thomas, T.A.D. Motorsports in located in Lake Zurich, Illinois, just outside Chicago.
During 1993 and 1994, T.A.D. prepared and ran an Open class Mitsubishi Eclipse for SCCA/Michelin PRO Rally series driver Henry Joy. In only his second year of PRO Rally competition, Joy matured into a top five driver in 1993, winning several stages outright, finishing all ten rallies entered, and narrowly missing a third-place overall finish in the point standings.
In '94, those top five finishes became top three finishes (second at Wild West and third at Lake Superior). Thomas and Joy have gone on to two PRO Rally wins in the last two years.
Thomas, who has worked around the sport of rally for 17 years - including crew chief in the World Championship/FIA series - spent the late 1980's and early 1990's as crew chief for Rod Millen Motorsports. He helped Millen and his Mazdas to two SCCA Overall championships, three Group A titles, and top finishes in the FIA Asia Pacific Series, including a first place finish in the Himalaya Rally which gave Millen and co-driver Tony Sircombe the 1989 Asia Pacific series championship.
Besides preparing and maintaining Joy's new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution II PRO Rally car, T.A.D. also works on other customer cars - most recently the Mazda 323GTR of Peter Moodie, Sam Bryan's new '96 Saab 900 Group 5 racer, and Paul Choiniere's Pike's Peak Hyundai Elantra - as well as street modifications and rally- related parts and components.
The shop also has full fabrication capability, and can construct rally vehicles from the ground up. Thomas and crew showed its capability in October, 1997 after Joy and Fennell destroyed the EvoII in Prescott, as they built a new rally car from a spare roller in just nine days.
In 1998, T.A.D. has been preparing the Ford Sierra Cosworth of Garen and Doc Shrader, and the Rim-of-the-World-winning Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV of David Summerbell/Michael Fennell.
TAD Website: www.tadmotorsports.com
Phone: 847-550-8116
FAX: 847-550-8018
E-Mail: info@tadmotorsports.com