Q: You know Chevy has had bigger advantages than this in the past but no one cried nearly as loudly and so NASCAR didnt make any changes. I am not the biggest TOYOTA fan but they did this all within the rule books but people crying caused NASCAR to make a rule change. Do you think TOYOTA got the shaft and is now at a DISADVANTAGE in the N'wide series? I was watching Despain with Todd Braun and he said after Chicagoland if you take out the 99 and the 11 car in the Dyno tests all the cars were within 4 to 5 horsepower. Now nascar takes away 15 from all the Toyotas so does that put them at a disadvantage? Please give smart answers only and not pure Toyota hatred.
A: no shaft, but they did get a stricter restrictor plate than everyone else. i saw that interview and despain's take on the whole thing, as well as some commentary i found most interesting. dave is usually quite anti-conspiracy, but that one bit where he went over the fact that robin pemberton said that "any of the other manufacturer's would be given the same restrictions on any new engines" made me pause. his contention was that pemberton was telling other manufacturers that they need not waste money developing a special purpose engine for that series - nascar will make sure to keep that upstart outsider (toyota) down enough that it will all remain competitive. sounds like nascar really caved to roush more than we thought. true, the R07 can be brought in and restricted just like the toyota, but what incentive do ford and dodge have to build a new "special purpose" pushrod V-8 if it's just going to be restricted once it's put into place. and after listening to braun go over the numbers in a little more detail, it really does hit home that nascar punished the foreign make for doing well all because of one team's hard work and the refusal of people like roush to change anything themselves that might cost them money. of course, i also liked his "my take" section where he said that toyota had to have expected this coming in, that it's not the first time, and it probably won't be the last that such mid-season changes have been made. toyota wanted in to market their cars - they are in. now they have to get used to the "flexible rules" policy nascar has... bottom line, it sucks, it's done, they'll deal with it - as braun said "we'll be ok."