Toyota Poised to Make Gains in Sprint Cup

For a year now, it has been the 800-pound gorilla in the back of the room, eyeing the competition, making everyone else nervous. Toyota did not come roaring out of the box when it entered Nextel Cup, now Sprint Cup, in 2007.

In fact, you could say the season was a disaster, starting with Michael Waltrip's car being caught before the Daytona 500 with illegal fuel – an absolute no-no in NASCAR – and continuing to the end, when six of its seven drivers failed to make the top 35 in points.

That made the gorilla restless, and he's up and stirring.

The gorilla lives at TRD, Toyota Racing Development, a $50 million enterprise based in Costa Mesa, Ca. There, 220 engineers do nothing but work on Toyota's racing programs, which include the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series as well as Sprint Cup, off-road and drag racing. But the emphasis is on Sprint Cup.

No other car manufacturer in Sprint Cup has anything like it – a separate research and development facility. Jack Roush, whose five-car team carries the Ford banner, warned last season that Toyota had the potential to out-muscle everybody, even Chevy's all-powerful Hendrick Motorsports, which won the championship and 18 of the 36 races last year.

Toyota has done it before. After a weak start in open-wheel racing, it marched through Champ Car and then the IRL. Then it entered NASCAR's truck series and did the same thing, being dominant in 2005 and 2006 and having three of the top four – five of the top 10 – last year. More at The Ledger

[Editor's Note: The rumor all along has been that Toyota agreed with NASCAR to lay low their first year or two to avoid rejection by their Xenophobic fan base. As with the truck series, they will eventually dominate the Sprint Cup series……driving attendance and TV ratings down even faster than they are dropping now.]