"Oh, what a failing" Toyota & Nascar
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An interesting take pulled from a thread over at SpeedTV: "Toyota's F1 team wouldn't surprise me 1 second if they were involved somehow. The team spends something like $300 million on year on just 2 cars a year with a staff of 500 people or so on their F1 team. Their engineers are military grade. No doubt are the F1 staff helping the NASCAR effort in some way."
A little JP-5 will do an engine good.
Wouldn't surprise me either. Especially knowing the level of involvement Penske Racing has in F-1 and international sports car racing, and the fact that RCR has engaged F-1 teams to explore the benefits of F-1 technology in NASCAR application.
And of course there is Team Red Bull in NASCAR for 2007. The dude who owns that company is worth about $2.5 billion, and owns two F-1 teams. I'm sure there will be plenty of technology crossover with those guys.
"Toyota also often gets caught cheating (think WRC and their permanent ban). Think F1 and the aforementioned stolen Ferrari documentation, the demise of CART was in part to Toyota’s political pressure (remember 1/2 the cars in the field where Toyota powered, Toyota was he official sponsor and provided marketing funds and vehicles) on CART (and their pitiful weak will) to break their own engine change rules (moving to a 3.5 liter IRL spec v8 for the next year while in mid season - who had been working on the exact same engine configuration for the last 2 years - Toyota!). If anyone recalls Toyota after they bought out the Ganasty team (Chipper will sell his mother’s own soul for a win or $$) Toyota freely took a CART car to the autoshows in the Ganasty paintjob and had listed the 4 mgfr’s championships and 5 driver’s titles as a Ganasty/Toyota domination. Honda’s CEO had to be restrained as he wanted to throttle the CEO of Toyota.
Toyota may make good cars but they compete unfairly against the other teams in order to win. Toyota races to market their cars rather than to learn and apply those lessons to their products (like Ferrari, Lotus, Porsche and even Honda)."
Seriously, Toyota does have a corporate culture of shennanigans when it comes to motorsports. Whether the powers that be knew anything about the current Nascar fiasco, time will tell, but I have to admit when I heard about the Waltrip Toyota I got a big grin on my face.
Toyota may make good cars but they compete unfairly against the other teams in order to win. Toyota races to market their cars rather than to learn and apply those lessons to their products (like Ferrari, Lotus, Porsche and even Honda)."
Seriously, Toyota does have a corporate culture of shennanigans when it comes to motorsports. Whether the powers that be knew anything about the current Nascar fiasco, time will tell, but I have to admit when I heard about the Waltrip Toyota I got a big grin on my face.
I'm glad someone else knows of their "corporate culture" of abject CHEATING in global motorsports. (I remember the whole WRC incident, quite clearly.) I guess all of those Camry/Corolla trillions of $$$$$$ forced all of the announcers to claim, "this does not reflect on Toyota, just on Waltrip Motorsports".
Did you noticed all the yahoooo when Waltrip finished 7th today to make the Daytona....he got more air time than the winner....I think a whole 8 toys made the race ha ha.
Well said. Remember when Bill France Jr I think it was got caught out at a press conference. When it came out Chev had been blatently cheating with their heads for years while Ford was made to toe the line by NASCAR Bill was asked why they let GM get away with it. "More people drive Chevrolets" was his answer. After that GM and Ford teams had to come up with their best head and everybody used it. Ford went with Yates of course and they dominated from then on over GM's 18 degree heads from memory. NASCAR relented down the track and let GM have another go. They have the political muscle. Now a bit off topic I know but useful to remember.
Well, that's kind of a crackpot post in that ESPN forum. Too many random thoughts bouncing around in that person's head to make even a simple, coherent comment. But it does bring up a few topics I'd like to comment on. I'll try to be a little more comprehendible.
(1) What happened with the #55 was deserved. NASCAR has been escalating their penalty process for at least the past few years, especially at restrictor plate races. Everyone in the garage area knows officials are getting more and more serious about rules violations. Last year the #48 team got caught cheating and lost their crew chief for 4 races. I certainly would not call that a cover up. But the conspiracy theorists can't seem to control themselves when it comes to favoritism and penalties. Let 'em froth, I say. The writing has been on the wall for years.
(2) The COT clearly has nothing to do with what is happening this weekend or with the #55 or the #48 or whoever. This change was put in place the day after Dale Earnhardt was killed. It was inevitable even if no one knew what the end result would be. One thing about the COT is it will level the playing field for awhile until the teams can get a handle on the cars and change their tactics and race strategy accordingly. Then you'll see the top teams pull to the front again, just like they do now. 100% predictable - 0% conspiracy.
(3) I do agree that NASCAR has shown GM a certain amount of favoritism over the years. Ford was ascendant from the mid 80's to the late 90's with the T-Bird, Bill Elliott, Jack Roush, Mark Martin, etc. Ford spent a lot of $$ assisting teams with tech support, wind tunnel time, information access, etc. At one time in the early 90's about 2/3 of the field was Fords. They were a compelling choice for smaller, less well funded teams. Now the pendulum has swung to favor Chevy. This really started happening when Pontiac pulled out and people like Joe Gibbs Racing, Bill Davis Racing, Petty Enterprises, MB2, Bahari, AJ Foyt, etc. needed to change brands. Some went to Chevy, some to Dodge, others disappeared. A big determining factor is engine lease programs and tech/wind tunnel support. Right now Chevy offers a lot to their teams while Ford and Dodge focus their energies on fewer teams (Roush and Evernham, respectively). NASCAR wants a level playing field which is why they've accepted Toyota with open arms and wallets, and why the COT is what it is. I don't see Chevy getting much in the way of breaks but they do have the strongest teams right now and that's going to make it look like they're bending the rules in order to beat the other mfrs. I honestly don't think that's happening now but I do believe it has happened in the past (dovetailing onto Sprintman's point about GM influence). BTW, NASCAR approved a new engine design from GM today. Called the R07, it was designed for NASCAR competition and is not directly production based. Their last new engine, the SB2, was intro'd in 1998. Since then all the other brands have developed new race engines for NASCAR competition.
(4) All the NASCAR folks I talked to about the RCR wheel drilling issue told me they did not see a tangible advantage to what they did. It struck me as one of those rule-bending ideas that sound good in theory but don't really work on the track. Yeah, RCR got caught but did they really have an advantage?
As long as there is auto racing and rulebooks, there will be cheating and rules manipulation. Want to get rid of cheating? Toss out the rulebook and let em 'run whatcha brung'. Might not make for compelling TV or corporate marketing opportunities but it might make a few people happy for awhile.
(1) What happened with the #55 was deserved. NASCAR has been escalating their penalty process for at least the past few years, especially at restrictor plate races. Everyone in the garage area knows officials are getting more and more serious about rules violations. Last year the #48 team got caught cheating and lost their crew chief for 4 races. I certainly would not call that a cover up. But the conspiracy theorists can't seem to control themselves when it comes to favoritism and penalties. Let 'em froth, I say. The writing has been on the wall for years.
(2) The COT clearly has nothing to do with what is happening this weekend or with the #55 or the #48 or whoever. This change was put in place the day after Dale Earnhardt was killed. It was inevitable even if no one knew what the end result would be. One thing about the COT is it will level the playing field for awhile until the teams can get a handle on the cars and change their tactics and race strategy accordingly. Then you'll see the top teams pull to the front again, just like they do now. 100% predictable - 0% conspiracy.
(3) I do agree that NASCAR has shown GM a certain amount of favoritism over the years. Ford was ascendant from the mid 80's to the late 90's with the T-Bird, Bill Elliott, Jack Roush, Mark Martin, etc. Ford spent a lot of $$ assisting teams with tech support, wind tunnel time, information access, etc. At one time in the early 90's about 2/3 of the field was Fords. They were a compelling choice for smaller, less well funded teams. Now the pendulum has swung to favor Chevy. This really started happening when Pontiac pulled out and people like Joe Gibbs Racing, Bill Davis Racing, Petty Enterprises, MB2, Bahari, AJ Foyt, etc. needed to change brands. Some went to Chevy, some to Dodge, others disappeared. A big determining factor is engine lease programs and tech/wind tunnel support. Right now Chevy offers a lot to their teams while Ford and Dodge focus their energies on fewer teams (Roush and Evernham, respectively). NASCAR wants a level playing field which is why they've accepted Toyota with open arms and wallets, and why the COT is what it is. I don't see Chevy getting much in the way of breaks but they do have the strongest teams right now and that's going to make it look like they're bending the rules in order to beat the other mfrs. I honestly don't think that's happening now but I do believe it has happened in the past (dovetailing onto Sprintman's point about GM influence). BTW, NASCAR approved a new engine design from GM today. Called the R07, it was designed for NASCAR competition and is not directly production based. Their last new engine, the SB2, was intro'd in 1998. Since then all the other brands have developed new race engines for NASCAR competition.
(4) All the NASCAR folks I talked to about the RCR wheel drilling issue told me they did not see a tangible advantage to what they did. It struck me as one of those rule-bending ideas that sound good in theory but don't really work on the track. Yeah, RCR got caught but did they really have an advantage?
As long as there is auto racing and rulebooks, there will be cheating and rules manipulation. Want to get rid of cheating? Toss out the rulebook and let em 'run whatcha brung'. Might not make for compelling TV or corporate marketing opportunities but it might make a few people happy for awhile.
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Waltrip? Jelly Like substance??
[image]http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn
5_7P95Fhg-v6M:http://www.drug.net/img/goods/ky/main.jpg[/image]Nascar has also allow Ford and Dodge a lot of advantages......it just doesn't show up as much because they don't win as much. I remember nascar letting Ford redue the rear of the car in the past (can't recall if it was the last T-Bird or the Taurus). And Dodge cars get a lot of help in the aero package. I have favorite Drivers in a three makes, so I don't pick one brand over another....except any brand that beats Toyota lol Let the war begin...
I hear you on that, loud and clear!! I used to just root AGAINST "Smoke" (and FOR Mr. Johnson) just because I could not stand Home Depot at all! Now, I could care less if Tony Baloney wins EVERYTHING back to back, as long as he shuts out/down the Japan, Inc. machine. Hopefully he gets some help with this from the other domestic teams.
^^^
Ford still using updated Yates head or do they have something new? Interesting note that Robert Yates main aim in his head design was to stop the Fords burning pistons (higher ring pack). Ended up with a superior head than GM and better mid range. Watch old restarts and see how the GM teams struggled. They screamed long and hard and NASCAR relented (as always).
Good question. I don't know if they've completely overhauled their engine design or just made incremental improvements.
I remember all that Ford cylinder head developement work. A good bit of it trickled down to WoO in the early 90's. For a short while Ford sprint car motors were as good or better than the Chevy derived versions, at least in mid range torque; helped a lot on restarts and pulling off corners. I think the weight and size penalty eventually offset performance, esp when Brodix and others advanced their head designs to meet the Ford's.
Dayton 500 just ended...looks like Toy got thumped again. I think Darrel Waltrip got in trouble. Did anyone notice that after he spouted off about the Toy being built in Kentucky and the Ford in Canada that the other guy shute him up and explained about a non US name plate. Then Darrel vanished for a while...I'm I the only one that caught this??
My buddy owns the local NAPA store here in our little town....I thought I'd be funny and ask him for some of Waltrips "Cheating Fuel" this morning...everybody at the counter thought it was funny....he didnt....he is all #@$%! off over it....thinks NAPA should pull their sponsorship and further believes Waltrip violated his contract. He is a lifelong NAPA guy and it has soiled NAPA's reputation in his eyes.
anyone see the truck race friday night just wondering what makes finished in the top five..
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