Debbi Willis - SCR

Just the Facts, Please

June 6, 2008
Debbi Willis - SCR

Every week the media rides along with Toyota in the Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) teammates of Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin. They tell the fans how great Toyota Racing Development is, how wonderful the cars are handling and how strong the horsepower is until all anyone can believe is that Toyota is the best! Toyota isn't the best. They just appear to be the best at this time. Toyota doesn't have more horsepower or special advantages, or anything extra special that's making them

so successful this season except a lot of hard work.

Just like Sgt, Joe Friday always gently chided on the old Dragnet, let's stay with "just the facts, please" when screaming about the Toyota dominance and horsepower. Just because Kyle Busch is in everyone's face and the talk of the track everywhere he goes for a few weeks does not mean the season is over and the champ crowned. There's still nearly ¾ of the season to finish and plenty can happen to sour a driver's chase hunt. Racing is a competitive, ever changing sport. Anyone who's been on top of the world can relate to how easy it is to fall off!

The ultimate sin (in the minds of some folks) occurred in stock car racing last season. A foreign manufacturer made it into the big league of Sprint Cup Racing. Toyota Racing Development (TRD) took a swan dive in last year and never came back up for air. They literally drowned in a full season of miserable faux pas' and incredibly embarrassing incidences that brought tremendous shame to the power, name and honor of Toyota. What they thought they knew, they found out they really didn't when it came to the elite Sprint Cup Series. Their way wasn't working for them or the teams. Beyond that, the drivers who banked on being competitive with Toyota went down with them. Though not uncommon for a new manufacturer to suffer setbacks in their first season (or several), Toyota aspired higher. Alas, they had no solid teams to draw from to learn what they needed to know to improve their lot... until Joe Gibbs Racing.

Suddenly the best of both worlds merged: a very hungry, aggressive, foreign manufacturer with a top quality Sprint Cup team that had a strong engine building department and a stable of aggressive drivers, too! Toyota did the best thing they could do by putting their engine builders with the Joe Gibbs Racing engine builders and sharing knowledge and skills. Thus the result is the greatly improved engines of the sophomore year in Sprint Cup Racing.

Add the deeply, spurned Kyle Busch to the mix of the JGR Stable and Toyota finds victory lane quickly - just as Kyle Busch predicted in the pre-season. Some say NASCAR is helping them by giving them concessions. That's really a lame statement. If NASCAR had given Toyota any special treatment for more horsepower, ALL the Toyota teams would be lining the finishes 1-2-3 but they're not. Rules are still rules. Everyone is abiding by them or there would be a lot more to listen to than fans complaining. Owners wouldn't stand for it. Jack Roush and Kevin Harvick have suggested they believe that Toyota is higher on the horsepower but NASCAR says it's equal. I believe there are setup issues and design that gives the Toyota's slight advantages, which NASCAR does allow and probably shouldn't. Just as other manufacturers have had advantages, NASCAR is moving very slowly on evaluating Toyota's advantages in my opinion. But I also believe Toyota is driving the other teams to work harder to meet the challenge of beating them. In and of itself, this is excellent for the sport. The usual suspects aren't dominating the races week in and week out as fans have often complained about.

Finally, when evaluating the first 13 races of the season, the parity is fairly even in victories with 2 for Dodge, 3 for Chevy, 3 for Ford, and 5 for Toyota, and the All-Star race went to a Dodge. Toyota only recently took the lead on the victories. On the other hand, where horsepower spells speed, in the stats for the poles, Chevy fully dominates with 7 poles, while Toyota has only captured 3, Ford has 2 and Dodge has 1. Therein lies the biggest quandary of all: horsepower which equals speed doesn't always equal victory! Just because a car runs fast all alone doesn't mean it can win the race. As usual there's more to racing than just going fast. Keeping the facts in mind, one can see that it's teamwork, overcoming multiple setbacks, and digging deeper and deeper until the best possible finish is achieved that makes winners. And, this season, Toyota is clearly swimming laps instead of drowning in a sea of mistakes.