Report: Teacher Rents Toyota, Races It

In a story coming to you out of your author's hometown, we have a teacher who rented a Toyota Supra on Turo ... to set a land-speed record.

Here's the skinny, according to Fox 32 Chicago. A teacher at Naperville North High School (NOT my alma mater, if you're wondering. I was a Redhawk thank you very much.) was leading an all-female group of auto-shop students on a project to build a truck that could set a land-speed record.

But as they drove to Beeville, Texas, to attempt to set the record in the Texas Mile, the truck broke down, according to teacher Gregory Ditch. This is when Ditch requested to rent a 2021 Toyota Supra GR 3.0 from San Antonio resident Giovanni Morales via the Turo app.

I'll pause here to note that Fox lists the Supra as "rare." While Supras sell in relatively small numbers, "rare" seems a stretch -- we're not talking about a Bugatti here.

This is where the story devolves into he said/he said -- Morales claims he didn't know his car would be raced, while Ditch says he made it clear he'd be racing the car. Ditch further says he got the car from a dealer, not Turo or Morales.

Morales says he noticed his car was raced because of tire and brake wear, and claims that $4,000 in damage was done. He also claims he saw social media posts of the car, and the vehicle had the same paint color and non-stock wheels as his ride. It also had the same license plate number.

Turo is investigating and apparently sent Morales a letter suggesting that the company had determined the rental violated its terms of service because the car was raced.

Turo told Fox 32 it's simply investigating. So, too, is Naperville Community Unit School District 203 (which, for better or worse, provided this author's public education from kindergarten through high school).

I won't adjudicate who is telling the truth or not -- it's obviously possible Ditch is lying, but also possible that Turo somehow represented the car as belonging to a dealer and Ditch had no idea it belonged to a private individual -- but a few other things stand out.

A note on disclosure here -- I don't know Ditch or anyone involved in the story, nor do I really care that it happened at a rival school to my alma mater. This story was already on my radar to cover today, and only when I started researching did I learn that it's connected to my hometown.

One is the relative hyperventilation by Fox (a common reaction among local news stations) over the claimed 160 miles per hour the car reached. That's fast, yes, but not unusual for today's hi-po sports cars.

Then there's this: The record they were aiming at was 207 mph. Did this teacher really think a Supra, even one that might have been modified -- we know the wheels aren't stock -- could reach more than 207 mph?

There's also the fact that the Supra is speed limited to 155 mph, though it's not hard to imagine the car getting 5 mph more, or the owner disabling the limiter.

More to the point, regardless of whether the car was rented properly or not, how is it within the rules of whatever unnamed event the students were attending to just rent a car when the vehicle built for the event broke down?

I am also skeptical about Morales' damage claims. Yes, attempting to set a land-speed record would lead to tire and brake wear, but four grand worth? Especially if we're talking about straight-line attempts as opposed to lapping a road course. According to the track map, the cars launch from a standing start and then run in a straight line for a mile. They then use an extended braking area -- the distance isn't clear -- to slow down.

Obviously, I have many questions, and perhaps we'll dig into this further next week.

Some of my questions: Let's assume the teacher is telling the truth and the Supra rental was on the up and up and within event rules. Was it a smart move or an underhanded way to win? Why would someone rent a Supra for an event in which the aimed-for speed is over 200 mph? Is it cool to use Turo for this? How did the lines of communication possibly break down here?

[Image: Toyota]

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