Fans revved up, pro and con, over Toyota NASCAR debut
BARRIE MCKENNA
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
WASHINGTON — When Dale Jarrett takes to the track in qualifying for the Daytona 500 this week, the North Carolina native will be racing a car built and designed in California, sponsored by a venerable U.S. company -- UPS -- and owned by Kentucky driver Michael Waltrip.
But for many people in the NASCAR Nation, Mr. Jarrett isn't nearly American enough because he'll be driving a Toyota Camry.
For the first time in more that half a century, a foreign auto maker is going up against Detroit's Big Three in the premier U.S. stock car racing circuit -- the Nextel Cup series, which begins later this month in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Like all NASCAR vehicles, there isn't much beyond the front grill and the tail lights of Mr. Jarrett's car that is like the Toyota parked in your driveway. But the Japanese auto maker is putting its signature brand and its technological know-how into an eight-car effort to make a name for itself in this quintessential U.S. sport.
"Toyota has been aware all along that there is going to be a percentage of the fans that are going to be upset," acknowledged Les Unger, national sports manager for Toyota Motor Sales USA. "That isn't a surprise to us, and it isn't a surprise to NASCAR. It's been an American sport for 50, nearly 60 years."
Toyota's NASCAR debut has already sparked a smattering of protests.
The NASCAR plans have also ignited a lively debate in fan chat rooms and complaints from rival teams that Toyota is luring away top talent and unfairly spending its way into the inner sanctum of stock car racing.
"We're going to war with them, and they should give us their best shot, because we'll be giving as good as we take," Jack Roush, a rival team owner who races Fords, told reporters recently.
Mr. Roush said Toyota is "upsetting the balance" in the sport, now dominated by Ford, Chevy and Dodge. "Toyota will bring changes in the way we conduct business," he said. "They have deep pockets . . . They'll try to put the rest of us in a catch-up scenario,"
Some fans have accused Mr. Jarrett and the other Camry drivers of being "sellouts" to the Japanese. Among them is Bill Bagwell Jr., who works for General Motors in Ypsilanti, Mich. and has started a website, fansagainstracingtoyotas.com, devoted to attacking Toyota.
"NASCAR was one of the last few things that was truly American," a fan lamented on the site's message board this week. "We as a country have lost our way and we are going down in a ball of flames."
Racing experts said the sport's conservative fan base doesn't much like change. Many, for example, still complain bitterly that cigarette maker Winston gave way to Nextel as the main sponsor of the elite Cup series of races, pointed out Edward Collins, founder of Fan1st.com, a popular NASCAR website.
"NASCAR is the No. 1 TV sport in America and its fans are the most loyal in the world," Mr. Collins said. "That loyalty shows in the products they buy -- Fords, Dodges and Chevys. Some fans are going to accept this, and some of them are going to put up a fight. I admire the fight."
But Mr. Collins said fans will come around when they realize that the Toyota Camrys are just like many other products Americans buy. In a global economy, products are often assembled in one place, with parts from another country, by a company headquartered in a third country, he said.
"As my 18-year-old son likes to tell people: 'Don't you watch NASCAR on TV? Well, look on the back of the TV and see where it's made.' You don't have a TV made in America any more. It's just a fact of life that a lot of our products, even when they're made here, they're owned by foreign manufacturers."
And there was barely a whimper from fans when German-owned DaimlerChrysler brought Dodge back to NASCAR in 2001 after a 21-year absence.
The automotive world has become sometimes confusingly global. The Camry, for example, is assembled in Georgetown, Ky., with 75 per cent North American content. Two other prominent NASCAR vehicles aren't made in the U.S. -- the Ford Fusion (Mexico) and the Chevrolet Monte Carlo (Canada).
Toyota isn't as Japanese as many Americans think -- a point Toyota has been eagerly touting as part of a campaign to win hearts in the U.S. heartland. Toyota has grown deep roots in the Big Three's backyard in 20 years of making cars here. Toyota now has 10 North American assembly plants, employs 38,000 factory workers and produces roughly two million vehicles a year. Its new Tundra pickup is designed, developed and built in the United States.
"Our expansion into NASCAR Cup racing is not a way to sell more Camrys," Toyota's Mr. Unger explained in an interview. "Yes, Camrys are being raced, but the focus is not on Camrys. It's on connecting with 80 or 90 million NASCAR enthusiasts out there. We're trying to get more people to feel good about the company. We are making more and more investments here every day. And we are using our involvement to do a better job of increasing the exposure of the company to a very enthusiastic fan base."
