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Toyota Win Shows NASCAR's Ugly Side

Geoffrey MillerPosted Mar 13th 2008 9:01AM by Geoffrey Miller

The seas had quieted and the new day had dawned. The thunder was off in the distance and clear skies were seemingly prevailing.

Then, Kyle Busch won Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500.

Nope, Busch himself didn't cause problems and neither did his actions on track. It wasn't something he said or did, but rather, something he drove.

Busch won with the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota -- a shot that rang loud and clear over the heads of the purest of NASCAR fans. Or purists, would you say?

Just check some of the comments here at the FanHouse to understand what I'm talking about.

This one wants NASCAR boycotted, this one says that NASCAR is hurting the "integrity" of the sport, and this one says NASCAR should sell their tickets to the "japs and koreans".

And all of these, mind you, came in the first fifteen comments to the post about Kyle Busch's Atlanta Motor Speedway win.
The haters of Toyota, the manufacturer that started competing with Ford, Chevy, and Dodge in Sprint Cup in 2007, were back and in full force. Seemingly they had hid in the darkness like those creepy computer-generated people in I Am Legend and then all pounced at once on the scent of Kyle Busch's win.

According to these so-called NASCAR fans (I say so-called because I don't know how well I want to associate with people who discriminate on the basis of nationality, much less anything), Toyota is signaling the doom of all things red, white, and blue. NASCAR, they say, has always been about the "good-ol boys" who drive nothing but Detroit power because this sport is solely for Americans to enjoy, not anyone else.

In America, apparently, we don't share the wealth.

These "fans" draw comparisons to Pearl Harbor in their reasoning as to why a Toyota Camry shouldn't compete in NASCAR because somehow, someway, an act of war 66 years ago that killed 2,500 American people can be directly connected with driving race cars around a track at fast speeds.

I suppose I don't see the connection between men and women giving their lives for this country and drivers today racing for entertainment. They aren't exactly on the same level importance, if you ask me.

It's irrelevant too, they say, that Japan and United States are two of each other's closest allies today.

Or they say that Toyota is just a mirror-image of everything that's wrong with corporate America because jobs and manufacturing are being shipped off to other countries. The dynamic of what let this country happen -- opportunity -- is a bad one to support for others.

American NASCAR drivers -- Busch, Tony Stewart, Michael Waltrip, Brian Vickers, Johnny Benson, etc. -- then take the brunt of this anger. And yes, these teams are made up American pit crew members, sponsors, owners, and more. All because of what?

NASCAR allowing a top-selling car company in the United States to "go fast" like Ricky Bobby says.

This list of top-selling cars for January 2008 in America reads by make like this: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet, Chevrolet, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Ford.

But yet Toyota racing in this country is a horrible thing for too many vocal fans.

Isn't that kind of the point of NASCAR? To race "stock" cars? Or to coin the old adage, "to race Sunday and sell Monday"?

Sure, today's NASCAR machines hardly resemble anything you'll see on the street, but one thing is still clear.

Manufacturers get into NASCAR to sell their pieces primarily in America. If no one in the States bought a Toyota, it wouldn't make sense to race them here. That's just bad marketing.

Stop buying Toyota, and you won't see Toyota.

That won't happen though considering how poorly things seem to be run in Detroit for the "Big Three" combined with the top quality cars from foreign manufacturers being sold in head-to-head competition.

Don't forget either that places across the American heartland like Marysville, Oh., Greensburg, Ind., Georgetown, Ken., Huntsville, Ala., and plenty of others all employ Americans building Hondas, Toyotas, and so much more. You can bet, too, that there are plenty of restaurants, housing, automotive shops, retailers, etc. that all make a living by operating in a town where these plants are operating.

Is that not American?

All of this moaning and groaning about Toyota does make me wonder, though. Where were all of these haters during 2004 when a Toyota Tundra started racing the Craftsman Truck Series?

And what happened to them when Toyota struggled so mightily nearly all of last season?

I've got your answer: they were non-existent. These "fans" favorite drivers weren't getting beat in NASCAR's top series by a new manufacturer, so they didn't care who was in the field. Now, after getting their tails practically whipped at Daytona and Busch's win on Sunday at Atlanta, the haters are back in force using the only crutch they can muster against Toyota -- nationality.

Don't get me wrong, I can see that Toyota's entrance into Sprint Cup could have some drawbacks for competition if NASCAR isn't careful on the allowances they give to the manufacturer. And if NASCAR allows the deep-pocketed company to undermine all of the other teams by buying out the best talent, that's a problem, too.

But those aren't problems because of who Toyota is or where they're from.

It's a problem with NASCAR's management of one its competitors, nothing else.

Problems like this are exactly what keep NASCAR from fully entering the mainstream, I'd believe. NASCAR is truly national these days, but what happens when a corporation sees the treatment that Toyota receives as a new competitor?

Does that make NASCAR appealing? Would sponsors with no NASCAR experience want to face that kind of negative music about a team that simply wants to go fast and sell cars? Fat chance.

I'll knowingly admit that I'm as big of a fan of Darlington, Rockingham and Lowe's Motor Speedway as you'll meet, and I deeply understand the roots that NASCAR came from. And I'll gladly say they are just as important as the future directions that the sport wants to grow in.

But roots are just that, they are the basis of growth for anything, and if a sport can't build on them in a positive fashion without tearing down the new growth, there's no use in having them at all.

(Note: To anyone who made it this far, I applaud you. If you couldn't tell, I feel pretty strongly about this one. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the FanHouse. Got an idea, tip, or comment? Drop it in the comment box below!)

Tags: AtlantaMotorSpeedway, KyleBusch, NASCARFans, SprintCup, TonyStewart, Toyota

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