Toyota is turning some heads

In testing at Daytona, the manufacturer’s officials have been pleased.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — After a difficult — some may even call it disastrous — inaugural season at NASCAR’s top level, Toyota has made marked improvements in its Sprint Cup program.

The two weeks of preseason testing at Daytona International Speedway showed that the 11 Camrys are fast and ready to challenge for wins.

Although Kasey Kahne posted the fastest overall speed in a Dodge, Toyota drivers Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch had the next best speeds and Tony Stewart was 10th fastest. And in single-car runs, Camry drivers posted five of the top six speeds and 10 of the top 15.

It was a solid showing that had rivals wondering if a Toyota driver might score the manufacturer’s first Cup victory at the season-opening Daytona 500.

Toyota officials were pleased with the showing, but were cautious to take too much away from testing.

“If I told you how many times I have won testing in 40 years!” said Lee White, senior vice president of Toyota Racing Development. “It’s just testing, and it’s really hard for me to get all jazzed up over testing because you don’t know what people are doing. And there’s a month left before we race. That’s a lot of time for people to tune up their programs.”

It is difficult to accurately gauge just where the Toyotas rank after one testing session on the 2 1/2-mile superspeedway. NASCAR splits the session equally among single-lap runs and drafting, and nobody is certain what each team is even working on. Some may be looking for qualifying speed, while others may be fine-tuning race setups.

“This is the biggest game of chess,” Sprint Cup director John Darby said. “All these teams are toying with each other, and no one wants to show their full hand. Yes, the Toyota’s have been very impressive. But it’s hard to say for sure where they stack up against the competition.”

But the improvement goes way beyond rankings on the speed chart. Across the board, the teams are far more prepared than they were this time last season, and their programs have shown tremendous advancement.

Some of that can be attributed to time — Red Bull Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing were startups last season and simply ran out of time to accomplish everything before Daytona.

“When we were here last year, it was just trying to throw everything together as quickly as we possibly could just to be here,” said Dale Jarrett, who drives for Waltrip. “Now a year has gone by, and a lot has happened in that amount of time to make us that much better.”