After several years of competing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series, Toyota became the first import manufacturer to jump into the big leagues of NASCAR Nextel Cup racing in 2007. The Camry-badged Nextel Cup car started off last season with some high profile rules infractions at the Daytona 500, but actually managed a halfway decent season with two top five and 11 top ten finishes. Given the number of cars that run NASCAR races, that's a better percentage than Toyota's ever managed in Formula One. However, like the F1 team, a Toyota NASCAR entry has yet to score an outright victory.
Toyota's Motorsports VP Jim Aust has declared that this situation will not stand. While the F1 team has been given until 2010 to get its act together, Aust is pretty adamant that the Camry will start winning in 2008 when NASCAR dumps Nextel as its primary sponsor and renames its series the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Now that the company has sorted out its engine for next season's Sprint Cup cars and Joe Gibbs Racing has switched to Toyota, Aust feels that Toyota's time has come. We'll see.
[Source: Toyota Open Road Blog, Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
iSpec @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:29PM
....just like the 'skins are going to win the Superbowl. But who knows.
ehisforadam @ Jan 2nd 2008 4:02PM
Or the Lions!
9600baud @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:32PM
Why would they care to win NASCAR. Thats like winning your mentally challenged cousin's annual 3-legged races... whats the point?
Shawn @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:53PM
The point is the 37 Million people willing to watch your mentally challenged cousin's 3-legged races. That's why Toyota cares.
Mr. Oak @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:57PM
NASCAR runs about 36 races per year, ever looked up in the stands at a NASCAR event? Those soul you see in the grandstands represents potential customers to Toyota.
9600baud @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:23PM
Its foolish to think anyone who watches NASCAR would be caught dead in anything that isnt "Built FORD tough" whatever that means or is somehow branded as "This country's" truck.
AlmsFan @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:32PM
Well Toyota is aiming directly at the truck market with a big sticker on the tundra’s here in Texas that reads, “Built by Texans for Texans”.
I haven’t’ liked NASCAR much since they turned it into an IROC completion (about 20 years ago or more). I want to see manufacturer against manufacture not driver against driver. It looks like F1 is going the same direction limiting technology =(.
Bring back the real stock cars and I will tune in!
ehisforadam @ Jan 2nd 2008 4:03PM
For some reason, I don't think Toyota winning a nascar race would push someone over the edge into buying one.
DarkKnight67 @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:43PM
They'll either win or buy the win.
Red Star @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:52PM
Money talks.
geo.stewart @ Jan 2nd 2008 1:53PM
just to be clear, NASCAR did not "dump Nextel". Since Sprint bought Nextel, they are doing a name change to the parent company. You know, what NASCAR and Sprint wont allow ATT to do with the Cingular car they sponsor since they bought Cingular...
France is a friggin idiot.
I'd wager NASCAR can better go alone with the car sponsors better than it could with the series sponsor but France gets his money from the series sponsor.
Pokey @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:01PM
Just a small correction. Toyota isn't the "first import manufacturer to jump into the big leagues of NASCAR". Back in the '50s, there were a few foreign makes that competed in NASCAR, and a Jaguar actually won NASCAR's first road-course race.
Pokey @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:09PM
and since Tony Stewart is going to be driving Toyota this year, don't be surprised if you start seeing alot of Camrys with #20 stickers in the rear windows. We'll probably start seeing alot of Monte Carlo trade-ins in the used section of Toyota dealerships.
Or, heaven forbid, Toyota will start making "special edition" Tony Stewart Camrys. Oh yes, the possibilities are endless, and worrisome at the same time. I don't think I could stomach seeing black and orange Camrys on the streets. Those Monte Carlos were bad enough.
motorman @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:11PM
with old timers like my self not going to the NASCAR races as much as we used to NASCAR needed to tap into the people who buy non big 3 cars to sell tickets. that is why toyota is there,NASCAR wanted them. i used to go to 12/15 races a year but now the cost is so much i can only go to daytona for speed weeks and 4 tickets for all the races there cost me $3000
wally @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:32PM
"Camry will start winning in 2008 when NASCAR dumps Nextel as its primary sponsor and renames its series the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series".
YOU DO REALIZE THIS (Nextel Sprint) IS THE SAME COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Taylor @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:41PM
I'm an avid NASCAR fan, but I have been losing faith in the sport ever since they claimed there would be 'more manufacturer identity'. So putting stickers on a car makes it a Dodge or Ford now? They chassis are exactly the same. France needs to leave, and let someone who knows a thing or two about NASCAR run the gig. I'd love to see an actual Charger or whatever run the race. Straight HEMI power.
Nosecones and 5 foot wings. 'Nuff said.
Nicko @ Jan 2nd 2008 2:52PM
Why oh why can't the US embrace touring car racing like the rest of the world? It's dynamically more interesting (i.e. proper road courses) and the machinery used is a direct reflection of show room models. I was watching an Aussie V8 Supercar race on SPEED the other day and was blown away by how visceral it was and by how violently the drivers muscle those cars around a race track. Let's evolve from the stone age US motor sports fans.
Benfolio @ Jan 2nd 2008 3:12PM
+1
Take a production car, production motor, slap a race suspension on it, weld in a roll cage, tweak the motor and GO RACIN'. Sure there's going to be a disparity among competitors, but there are other ways to even out the competition than using ONE chassis, ONE body, etc.
It'll never happen in NASCAR, of course, but we can dream.
ehisforadam @ Jan 2nd 2008 4:54PM
+1
I totally agree. If we had something like the Aussi V8 Super Cars in the US it would blow people away. I'll never understand why people seem to hate right turns so much.
why not the LS2LS7? @ Jan 2nd 2008 7:52PM
Did you see the V8 Supercar race at Mount Panorama (Bathurst 1000)? Sweetness.
I'd love to see touring car racing do better here. Last year the Koni Challenge almost collapsed, that's how bad TC is doing here right now.