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Nationwide competition seeking relief as Kyle Busch, Toyota win yet again
By Jeff Gluck - Associate Editor
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Kyle Busch often says he just likes to hear noise, whether it’s boos or cheers. And there was plenty of noise after he, Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota won yet another Nationwide Series race, this time in the Dollar General 300 at Chicagoland Speedway.
But not all of it was coming from the fans.
Drivers and crew chiefs from Toyota’s rivals are frustrated, and the chorus of complaints continued to grow after they were soundly beaten again.
Rivals say Toyota’s success in the Nationwide Series is being credited to a horsepower advantage, which competitors claim denies them an even playing field. The manufacturer has won 14 of the 20 races this season, with Gibbs’ drivers already tying the series record for most wins by a team with 13.
Busch is responsible for five of those wins, with the latest one coming on a night that saw him comfortably lead 103 of the last 105 laps – all under the green flag – and cruise to victory lane ahead of Braun Racing’s Denny Hamlin.
The driver, team and manufacturer have all been impressive this season. But gripes from rival teams, combined with NASCAR’s wary eye toward anything that could mess with parity in the garage, prompted NASCAR to take 10 engines from various teams after the race.
Series director Joe Balash said NASCAR planned to take the motors – three Toyota, three Chevrolet, two Ford and two Dodge – back to its research and development center for dynamometer testing, which measures horsepower.
It’s the second time in four races that NASCAR has taken engines back for testing.
“We’re continuing our study on our competitive analysis and trying to balance the competition in the garage, which we’re kind of tasked to do,” Balash said. “There’s a lot of rumor in the garage where things are at, and that’s why we want to make sure that we get the actual data.”
The rumor – or fact, depending on who you ask – is that the recent Milwaukee dyno testing showed that Toyota and Dodge are fairly close in horsepower, while Chevy and Ford lag behind.
Dan Deeringhoff, crew chief for series’ points leader Clint Bowyer of Richard Childress Racing, said he believes the non-Toyota teams need help.
“Hopefully they are trying to come with what’s fairest for the series,” he said. “Toyota has got a definite advantage, but they’ve got a lot newer pieces [in their newer engines] than the American manufacturers have.
“The peak number is maybe 20 [horsepower] but I think the average is quite a bit more than what we’ve got.”
“The No. 1 thing that’s hurting us right now is the engines,” said defending series champion Carl Edwards. “Toyota just has more engine. As long as that happens, you’re going to keep seeing the Toyotas win races. Every once in a while, you’ll see us win one in a Ford or a Chevy, but that’s the tough part.”
The Toyota teams bristle when they hear rivals complain about the engines. JGR crew chiefs Jason Ratcliff (who has won four races with the part-time No. 18 team this season) and Dave Rogers (who has won nine races with the No. 20) said there isn’t much substance to the protests.
“We have a bunch of people complaining, so normally when you’re getting beat, [people blame] engines,” Ratcliff said.
“If you come by the garage area after [final practice], you’ll see a strong correlation between the guys that are complaining the most about horsepower and the guys that are going home earliest [after practice],” Rogers said. “The guys that are on TV ranting and raving about horsepower, they put a car cover over their car a half-hour after practice [ends], go home and they’re the first ones through tech.
“You have to work on these cars ... It’s an insult to these guys on this race team and how hard they work.”
Among the possible things NASCAR could do if a horsepower advantage is found is to change the spacer that limits air flow in the engine. NASCAR began using the spacer this year.
Balash said it would take about three or four days for NASCAR to run all the engines on its dynos.
“We have a lot of things that are available to us,” he said. “Based upon where the numbers shake out is what we would select. [Changing] spacers is one of the options. There’s three or four different ways you can use spacers.
“But we have to get to the numbers first ... before we would even speculate what we would do, if we would do anything.”
The engine used in Toyota Nation-wide cars is the same one used in Toyota Sprint Cup cars. Chevrolet is using its old SB2 engine and has not been given permission by NASCAR to use the new R07, which is used in the Cup series.
“Chevrolet’s got what it takes to win sitting on the shelf ’cause we can’t run it,” said Brad Keselowski, who finished third. “So that’s very frustrating.”
Rookie Landon Cassill, who drives a Chevrolet, said getting the R07 in the Nationwide Series is “going to be pretty necessary on our end.
“The SB2 has been around for a long, long time and these guys are squeezing all the horsepower they can out of it. I can’t thank them enough for it, but it’d be nice to have new equipment. An R07 is in the future and I think that’s going to bring us some horsepower.”
Busch said there were many more factors in his car’s success other than just the motor.
“You can make an engine look exceptional if you’ve got a car that goes through the corners as well as it does, and I blew by a lot of guys in the corners and not necessarily down the straightaway tonight,” he said. “It’s everything, a whole package, and that’s what you have to have in these series to run well.”
JGR team president J.D. Gibbs was so fired up about the complaints that he wrote down some talking points when addressing the media the day after Busch’s latest win.
He outlined all the changes that JGR has gone through since last season – in addition to its switch from Chevy to Toyota – when the No. 20 finished second in owner points.
The bodies are built in the team’s Cup shop, and the Cup employees can assist in hanging the bodies on the cars. All of JGR’s chassis are now built in-house. The team has integrated its Nation-wide and Cup programs better than ever, he said, and the team has made a major investment into the Nationwide Series because that’s where it believes the future lies.
In other words, it’s not just the engines that are responsible for the team’s success. And even if it were, Gibbs said the other manufacturers shouldn’t be complaining.
“My thing is, NASCAR has been very good at saying ‘Here’s your box, you work in that box,’” he said. “Make it the best you can make it. It’s not a welfare state. You have to work to get what you want to get out of it.”
There have been dominant organizations and manufacturers before, he said. Childress won 13 races last season – the record that Gibbs just tied – and Chevrolet won 22 times overall.
So yes, Gibbs said, Toyota and his team are having a great season. But there’s more to the story than just the motors.
“I think we have great drivers,” he said. “I know it’s been said, ‘Put a monkey in there and they can do it.’ Let me just say: We have some very gifted and highly trained monkeys.”
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