Eddie Wood looked at the leaden sky over Darlington Speedway and considered the impact of Toyota coming into NASCAR. "It's kinda like this weather," the veteran team owner said. "It's going to come anyway. There isn't much sense worrying about things you can't do anything about."
The rumors of Toyota entering one of NASCAR's national series began almost a year ago, but it wasn't until Speed Weeks at Daytona 2003 that the Japanese manufacturer pulled the cover off its 2004 entry into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
In public, NASCAR and its team owners welcome the newcomers. But back in the garages, some aren't so sure. There are concerns about the manufacturer coming in with a huge checkbook and simply dominating the series.
The Goal Is To Win "No one races to finish second," says Jim Aust, president of California-based Toyota Racing Development (TRD). His words may well be the mantra of TRD in motorsports and say everything about Toyota's plans to race in the Truck Series.
While Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge all use the Truck Series as third-level development grounds for the Winston Cup and Busch series, for Toyota the trucks will be their spotlight entry in major-league stock car racing.
"I'm sure they are going to bring in a lot of money," Wood said. "I think they will do the same thing Dodge did when it used the trucks to get back into NASCAR...except I think Toyota will spend a lot more than Dodge did."
It will be up to NASCAR to control how much the newcomer will influence the organization's future. And don't think for a minute that NASCAR is going to let Toyota come in and kick tailgates and take names.
"The thing that people have to realize is that Toyota has to meet the same rules as everyone else," says Wayne Auton, who heads the Truck Series for NASCAR. "We have a box-it's our rules-and they have to build a truck and an engine that stays in the same box everyone else is in.
"They aren't going to get anything special," Auton adds. "But at the same time, we expect them to do everything it takes to win races."
How Foreign? While Toyota has raced for a few seasons in NASCAR's Goody's Dash Series for subcompacts, the Truck Series will be the first non-American nameplate on a major scale in NASCAR since the 1950s when a British-made Jaguar raced in the Winston Cup Series.
While Dodge may be part of German-owned DaimlerChrysler, the cars in the Petty, Evernham, and Ganassi stables still say Dodge on them. Even though the Toyota Tundra is made in America, to many, it says Japanese on the hood.
But it meets NASCAR's requirements that the vehicle be manufactured domestically and that it be powered-in race trim at least-by a pushrod V-8 engine.
The Tundra is built in Princeton, Indiana, where 100,000 are cranked out every year. In a couple of years, a new plant will go on line in San Antonio, Texas. It will be capable of producing an extra 150,000 Tundras a year.
"If we can be competitive in racing, it will expand the overall exposure of Tundras to NASCAR fans, and it will open a new opportunity for us," Aust says. "It also helps us get the message across that the trucks are built in America."
Auton figures it also will help make NASCAR's made-in-the-USA racing more popular overseas. Many Japanese follow American stock car racing. In the 1990s, NASCAR held four races in Japan. Two of them were on the Suzuka road course and two on the Twin Ring Motegi oval. The last Motegi race -for the NASCAR Winston West Series-is the only foreign race to award points. The others were exhibition races.
However, car owner Jack Roush says that back in the USA some NASCAR fans will be turned off by Toyota's participation in the Truck Series.