Toyota is a global brand, they build cars everywhere, including America. Their sporting efforts in NASCAR is designed to be watched by Americans and are designed, run, and raced by Americans. Their European F1 efforts are based in Germany, run and raced by Europeans(an Italian and German) for primarily a European audience. Toyota's SuperGT racing efforts, are watched by Japanese, and are subsequently run and raced by the Japanese.

Motorsports is really an advertising medium for these manufacturers designed for a specific target audience. Not everything is about race and nationality.

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NASCAR is a sport? You mean like golf, bowling, and baseball???

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I'm sure Toyota will be too busy counting cups and dollars to give a damn.

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I'll count hats, you go in the parking lot and count Toyota cars. It's the latter they're more concerned with.

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Counted!!!

February 2008
General Motors –16.7% at 270,423 (2/07: 311,763)
Ford Motor Co –10.6% at 196,681 (2/07: 211,150)
Toyota Motor Co. –6.6% at 182,169 (2/07: 187,330)

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How about Chevrolet and the American LeMans Series?

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"And I don't mean GT"

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@Temple

I could be wrong but I think most of the SuperGT drivers are European, maybe even a couple of Americans. In other words I think Japanese drivers aren't in the majority in that series. Not that it means anything really, but it would be interesting if NASCAR were more diverse.

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Yea! like toyota gives a rats ass if you watch or not,to all the haters ,read this...........Among the complaints cited by the legion of NASCAR Nextel Cup fans upset with the arrival of Toyota at the top level is that it's a slap in the face of NASCAR tradition.

Really?

Allowing a variety of manufacturers into the series is certainly nothing new. With Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Toyota, the 2007 Nextel Cup series will have four manufacturers.

Check the entry list of the NASCAR Daytona Speed Week race on February 11, 1951, and you'll find cars from Buick, Chrysler, Ford, Hudson, Kaiser, Lincoln, Mercury, Nash, Oldsmobile, Packard, Plymouth, Pontiac, Studebaker and even a Henry J.

That's 14 brands, and it would have been 15 had a Chevrolet shown up.

All-American? Nope.
Sure, you say, but at least those were all American brands, since NASCAR has always been all-American, right?

Wrong. Check the lineup at NASCAR's first-ever road race in Linden, New Jersey, on June 13, 1954, on the grounds of the local airport. Yes, you had Lee Petty in a Dodge, Buck Baker in an Oldsmobile and Herb Thomas and Dick Rathmann in a pair of Hudsons. But the race was won by Al Keller in a Jaguar, and other brands in the 43-car field included Austin-Healey, MG, Porsche and even a Morgan. In all, 21 entries were foreign brands.

Fine, you say, but that was on a road course. NASCAR would never let foreign cars onto its oval tracks, right?

Wrong. The International 200 at Langhorne, Pennsylvania, was run on a 1-mile dirt oval track on June 21, 1953. There were six Jaguars — one was a fast qualifier — and there were a pair of Porsches, a Volkswagen and even an Aston Martin.

It was a bloody race. Driver Frank Arford was killed, Ray Duhigg suffered a broken neck and Lawrence Shultz was hospitalized with multiple injuries. They were driving, respectively, an Oldsmobile, a Dodge and a Plymouth. None of the foreign cars crashed. Dick Rathmann won in his Hudson with Lee Petty a close second in his Dodge, with Dick Allwine the top-finishing foreign car driver in his Jaguar, which came in 6th, 16 laps down.

When NASCAR returned to Langhorne the following year, none of the entries wore an import label — which meant the starting field dropped from 38 cars to 24 — though Wimpy Ervin made the race in his Henry J, which I mention because NASCAR does not have enough drivers now with names like Wimpy, Slick, Goober and another Wimpy, last name Sipple. Or Bub, Buckshot, Edsel, Elbert, Otis, Pop, Slim, Snuffy, Speedy, Tubby, and, of course, Fireball — all racers from the 1953 season.

Parnelli beats a Renault
But Linden and Langhorne weren't the last time foreigners raced at NASCAR. In the 1958 Crown America 500 NASCAR race at Riverside, California, a pair of Citroëns finished ahead of Parnelli Jones' Ford, though Parnelli did trounce a Renault.

In the now-defunct NASCAR Goody's Dash series, several foreign brands competed. That is, in fact, where Toyota started, before moving into the NASCAR Craftsman truck series, and now at the Nextel Cup level.

So if you're peeved about Toyota entering NASCAR, that's fine.

But listen, Wimpy, or Bub, or Goober, or whatever your name is: Think again about claiming tradition as your reason.


I

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thedevil - GREAT POST!!

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Look at your own ignorant comments with slurs like "rednecks" in.

God bless America is right.

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Technically, "rednecks" is not a slur to an entire race or even to a nationality.

One can very well say "dumb-arse hick" - and pretty much every country has a term to describe such people.

And yes - God Bless America.

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