Toyota hasn't merged as quietly as hoped
Cheating casts more skepticism on the automaker's Nextel Cup start.
By BRANT JAMES
Published February 17, 2007
DAYTONA BEACH - Onlookers gazed into the inspection bay in the back of the garage at Daytona International Speedway on Tuesday like beachcombers gaping at a foundered whale. Crew members slowed their normally brisk postpractice gait for a quick peek.
Inside, three NASCAR officials, among them Nextel Cup series director John Darby, conducted an autopsy of sorts on a blue race car. Silver tubes, wires and springs lined the walls. There was a bell housing, a drive shaft. Darby, standing inside the compartment where the engine used to be, dropped a wrench and pulled out an oil pump.
It was barely a race car anymore but for the white Camry sticker above the bumper, the "Toyota, moving forward" logo painted large on the white underside of the hood.
Toyota Motorsports vice president Jim Aust said he hoped to "merge into traffic quietly" when it was posed to him in January that coming to its first Daytona 500 and winning the pole could be the worst thing for the Japanese manufacturer in its first Nextel Cup season. But this was worse.
Michael Waltrip Racing entered Speedweeks as the largest with three cars of the three teams using Toyotas, the subject of a weekly documentary on ESPN and powered by a charismatic owner/driver, a two-time Daytona 500 winner.
But NASCAR's discovery, during a prequalifying inspection, of an illegal fuel additive was about to draw one of the largest penalties in series history: 100 owner and driver points, an indefinite suspension of competition director Bobby Kennedy and the same penalty plus a $100,000 fine for crew chief David Hyder.
The quiet merge had just turned into a jackknife.
Although NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said from the beginning of the three-day investigation that this was a team matter, not a Toyota one, all understood that the anxiety already surrounding the powerful automaker's Cup entry would be stoked further.
For Aust, an eight-year run-up to joining the Cup series was ruined with the squirt of bluish liquid.
"This is a week we had really looked forward to for many years, so for it to begin this way is an extreme disappointment for us," he said. "It certainly has taken away from a lot of the limelight, a lot of the shine, a lot of the happiness we had looked forward to."
Waltrip's transition from driver to large team owner was made possible by associating himself with a company - much to the chagrin of DaimlerChrysler, Dodge and General Motors - that provided a great deal of technical support and engineering expertise. A self-described "goofball" who has parlayed four career wins into great fame as a pitchman, Waltrip admitted Toyota faced "skepticism."
This situation will not diminish it. While many teams have publicly buoyed themselves by asserting NASCAR "is about people" and Toyota will not be able to buy success, team owner Jack Roush, who uses Ford, spoke in xenophobic terms about "going to war with" the automaker, which is No. 2 in the world ready to pass GM this year. The "Detroit guy," said driver Matt Kenseth, takes this very seriously.
A foreign make has not raced in NASCAR's top series since 1963. None has won since a Jaguar claimed a race in 1954.
Of course, defining "foreign" is another thing. The Camry is assembled in Kentucky. The other three nameplates at NASCAR's top level, the Ford Fusion (Mexico), the Chevy Monte Carlo (Canada) and the Dodge Charger (Canada), are made outside the country. And Dodge's parent company is Germany's Daimler-Benz.
Toyota has competed in the truck series since 2004, winning more races each season. Last season it won 12 and got its first NASCAR championship from Todd Bodine. And late Friday, Jack Sprague gave the automaker its first win at Daytona.
The concern is that Toyota's massive expenditure will swamp existing teams and manufacturers. Tales of outrageous contracts and stolen engineers abound, mostly propagated by Ford director of racing technology Dan Davis. Most teams, however, lost few if any high-level personnel directly attributable to Toyota.
Aust remains coy about how much his company will spend, saying, "Outspend is a word. We have no idea what it means because we don't have any idea what anybody else is spending. They're not going to reveal their figure and neither am I."
Toyota is likely to keep spending and start winning soon. The company is drawn to NASCAR, Aust said, by the same market-driven desire to sell cars as its American counterparts.
General Motors Racing general manager Pat Suhy said Toyota's inclusion has been beneficial to engine-builders lobbying for a more defined rulebook. Toyota's history of utilizing its vast technological resources to at time dominate open-wheel racing has forced NASCAR, he said, to blacken some "gray areas."
"They really opened up NASCAR's eyes," he said. "Before they came in, it was pretty loose. They used to take a look at an engine and say, 'Well, it looks like that 1955 engine in my pickup truck out there.' Well, Toyota didn't have that legacy."
The new legacy began with a blotch. Now it's up to Toyota to change it.
Brant James can be reached at brant@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8804. Information from Times wires was used in this report.
Fast Facts:
Daytona weekend
Today: Orbitz 300, Busch race, 1:15, ESPN2, 1010-AM
Sunday: Daytona 500, Nextel Cup race, 3:15, Ch. 13, 1010-AM
Inside
NASCAR ready to run with cleaner fuels. 6C
Today's forecast
Mainly sunny. Highs in low 60s and lows in low 40s. A 30 percent chance for rain.
. Fast facts
Daytona 500 lineup
Pos. No. Driver Make
1. (38) David Gilliland Ford
2. (88) Ricky Rudd Ford
3. (20) Tony Stewart Chevrolet
4. (2) Kurt Busch Dodge
5. (8) Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet
6. (40) David Stremme Dodge
7. (31) Jeff Burton Chevrolet
8. (5) Kyle Busch Chevrolet
9. (11) Denny Hamlin Chevrolet
10. (17) Matt Kenseth Ford
11. (07) Clint Bowyer Chevrolet
12. (18) J.J. Yeley Chevrolet
13. (1) Martin Truex Chevrolet
14. (99) Carl Edwards Ford
15. (55) Michael Waltrip Toyota
16. (12) Ryan Newman Dodge
17. (25) Casey Mears Chevrolet
18. (13) Joe Nemechek Chevrolet
19. (21) Ken Schrader Ford
20. (96) Tony Raines Chevrolet
21. (48) Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet
22. (109) Mike Wallace Chevrolet
Pos. No. Driver Make
23. (160) Boris Said Ford
24. (26) Jamie McMurray Ford
25. (16) Greg Biffle Ford
26. (01) Mark Martin Chevrolet
27. (43) Bobby Labonte Dodge
28. (9) Kasey Kahne Dodge
29. (45) Kyle Petty Dodge
30. (19) Elliott Sadler Dodge
31. (66) Jeff Green Chevrolet
32. (10) Scott Riggs Dodge
33. (41) Reed Sorenson Dodge
34. (29) Kevin Harvick Chevrolet
35. (6) David Ragan Ford
36. (42) Juan Montoya Dodge
37. (22) Dave Blaney Toyota
38. (14) Sterling Marlin Chevrolet
39. (7) Robby Gordon Ford
40. (00) David Reutimann Toyota
41. (70) Johnny Sauter Chevrolet
42. (24) Jeff Gordon Chevrolet
43. (44) Dale Jarrett Toyota
* Gordon 42nd after failing inspection Thursday