Davis and wife Gail with Toyota's...
Davis and wife Gail with Toyota's Jim Aust (left) during a press conference on BDR's plans with Toyota. Courtesy of Toyota Motorsports
You can almost hear the "oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy!" in Bill Davis' voice when he talks about racing Nextel Cup next year with Toyota. Davis, who hasn't had factory support from Dodge for a few years, is almost counting the minutes to Speedweeks 2007 in Daytona.
"Oh, yeah, we're excited about it," the longtime Cup car owner says. "It's practically a new beginning for us. We have new people in place and new sponsors in place, so we're excited."
Davis has lined up Jeremy Mayfield and Dave Blaney as his drivers. Caterpillar remains the lead sponsor for the No. 22 team, and Davis says that a pharmaceutical company will support the No. 23 team. BDR's other driver this year, Michael Waltrip, will take his car number, 55, and his sponsor, NAPA, over to his own three-car Toyota operation in 2007.
BDR has been without Dodge's factory backing since 2003, when Dodge claimed that BDR had given away technical secrets to Toyota. Dodge filed suit against Davis and his company.
Davis says all he did was help Lee White and Pat Wall of Toyota with their templates to get the new car brand into racing. The Toyota employees bought templates for all of the competing car manufacturers and took them to BDR so they could lay them out and get ready to build their first car. In fact, Wall says Davis actually built Toyota's first Cup car, which was basically a Ford with a Toyota front end.
BDR lost all technical support from Dodge and eventually lost the lawsuit, but Davis says he has appealed the ruling.
Toyota has made its presence...
Toyota has made its presence felt in the Craftsman Truck Series. Courtesy of Toyota Motorsports
Davis says his team lost $3 million per year, including parts, wind-tunnel time, and other support. And while other Dodge teams have had strength in numbers, BDR has been going it alone.
"It's been huge, not only from a financial standpoint," Davis says. "At the same time, we've been an island to ourselves, not sharing information on testing or racetracks. We've had to do everything by trial and error on our own. With NASCAR's testing rules, we've done most of our testing on Sunday."
But the story may have a happy ending. Toyota leased a building from Davis in High Point and has handled much of its technical support through Triad Racing Development (TRD). Wall is one of approximately 50 employees who work at TRD, where all of Toyota's racing trucks are built and fixed, and that's where work is being done on the Cup Camrys for 2007 and beyond.
Toyota has torn up the Craftsman Truck Series in the last year or so. Tundra drivers Todd Bodine, Johnny Benson (one of Davis' three Truck racers), David Reutimann, and Ted Musgrave were the top four drivers in the point standings after 16 races. Bodine and Benson, the latter a former Busch Series champion, each had a series-high three wins by mid-August. And Musgrave is the defending series champion.
"We've gotten a taste of racing with Toyota through the Truck Series," Davis says. "We just had our third win [of the year] at Nashville. We've seen how Toyota has supported us in Trucks, and we look for the same with the Cup Series."
Davis says that each Toyota team-Michael Waltrip's three teams and two teams each for BDR and Red Bull- will work on its Cup cars, just like the Chevrolet, Dodge, and Ford teams. TRD will help design the Camry for 2007 and Toyota's Car of Tomorrow, and it'll lend support to the seven Toyota Cup teams.
Bill Elliott tested a Toyota...
Bill Elliott tested a Toyota Cup car for Team Red Bull at Michigan during August. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images for NASCAR
"It'll be great to be a part of Toyota coming into the sport, and Toyota's going to do great things for the sport," Davis says.
The Davises-Bill's wife, Gail, is an integral part of the outfit, too-are excited about the recent return of Tommy Baldwin Jr., who was the crew chief when Ward Burton won the 2002 Daytona 500 for BDR. Baldwin recently left Robert Yates Racing and returned to Davis as competition director.
"He focuses his attention on making sure everything is being done for the '07 season for the Toyotas, making sure we're building cars on schedule," Davis says. "He's working with Toyota to get the right information. He's responsible for the competition side, making sure we hit the ground running in '07, but he's still overseeing our activities for '06. He's acting as a sounding board for the crew chiefs, and he'll offer a hand when they need it."
For Yates, Baldwin was just a crew chief, and he wanted to be more, Davis says.
"We'd been talking for six months in generalities," Davis says of Baldwin. "He presented a proposal to Yates, and with the transition period they're going through, they were not ready for something like this."
Davis says that Baldwin was almost an untitled competition director at BDR when he led the No. 22 team and helped the No. 23 team. Now he says the team is lucky to have him back.
"Bringing him back was an easy choice for us," says Davis. "He's a take-charge guy. He was here from '99 through '02. We had two straight years in the Top 10 [in points], and we won the Daytona 500 and Southern 500.
"He says that, all along, he felt like this was home for him, and we had the same feelings," Davis adds. "Now we've put the family back together. He's been here three weeks [through mid-August], and it's almost like he never left. It's been a smooth transition. Everybody's supported the change, bought into it."