Toyota Claims Victory is Imminent in the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup

[Kitdy]

From Autoblog

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.

To be frank, I respect Toyota but I don't' much care for their product. This however, does not stop me form cheering for them in NASCAR as I think a Toyota victory would piss off a lot of the more low brow NASCAR fans.

[fisetdavid26]

Fail.

[baddabang]

The rednecks will boo them out of town.

[Kitdy]

Fail.

How so?

The rednecks will boo them out of town.

Look at what they did to Jeff Gordon. I can't imagine what they'd do to Toyota.

[fisetdavid26]

How so?

youre cheernig for a nascar taem thats how

p.s post qaulity is low sry (booze)

[Ferrer]

I hope for them that they are at least slitghtly more successful than their F1 team.

[NicFromLA]

From Autoblog



To be frank, I respect Toyota but I don't' much care for their product. This however, does not stop me form cheering for them in NASCAR as I think a Toyota victory would piss off a lot of the more low brow NASCAR fans.

I agree.

[fpv_gtho]

Toyota probably need results in NASCAR more than they do in F1, and they'll probably achieve them much easier due in part to the more unpredictable nature of NASCAR racing. In F1, theyre a joke. The 2010 deadline theyve given themself, they think they can achieve the targets they need by doing the same thing theyve done all this time.

[fisetdavid26]

I'd much prefer to see them invest their time and money in ALMS than NASCAR and F1. The were rather successful with their TS010 in the 80's and early 90's, the GT-One came very close to win at Le Mans and all their xxC-V race cars were rather good performers.

P.S. Sorry for the previous posts.

[Ferrer]

I'd much prefer to see them invest their time and money in ALMS than NASCAR and F1. The were rather successful with their TS010 in the 80's and early 90's, the GT-One came very close to win at Le Mans and all their xxC-V race cars were rather good performers.

P.S. Sorry for the previous posts.

The only motorsport where they have really been successful is rallying.

Probably the worst move they ever did was leave in 1999.

[togos452]

Who cares? Every team runs the spec "Car of 40 years ago."

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[Cyco]

The only motorsport where they have really been successful is rallying.

Probably the worst move they ever did was leave in 1999.

Leaving and getting kicked out for cheating are 2 slightly different things...

[fpv_gtho]

I thought they were only banned for 1 year, and didnt bother coming back?

[kingofthering]

No, they came back with the Corolla WRC, didn't they?

[Wouter Melissen]

No, they came back with the Corolla WRC, didn't they?

Not after 1999.