NASCAR clamps down on Toyota’s Nationwide engine

Compiled by Mike Mulhern, Media General News Service
Published: July 24, 2008

NASCAR slapped Toyota with a slight engine-rules change on the Nationwide tour yesterday that should slow its teams a bit.
Toyota has dominated the Nationwide series this season, and rival car makers have been claiming that Toyota engines make more power. So NASCAR took several engines from Nationwide cars after the Chicago race two weeks ago for dyno testing, and came up with a new rule that reads:
“At all Events, unless otherwise specified, all engines with a cylinder bore spacing less than 4.470 inches must compete using a tapered spacer with four (4) 1.125-inch diameter holes. At all Events, unless otherwise specified, all engines with a cylinder bore spacing of 4.470 inches or more must compete using a tapered spacer with four (4) 1.100-inch diameter holes. Unless otherwise authorized, the carburetor restrictor will be issued by NASCAR.”
On the Nationwide tour, only Toyota has an engine with the larger bore spacing. Now, that engine will be choked down a little.
The new Chevrolet R07 engine, not currently legal on the Nationwide tour but the standard engine on the Cup tour, would be subject to the new rule on the Nationwide series. GM teams are currently running the 10-year-old SB2 Chevrolet engine in Nationwide.
“Eventually all teams that upgrade to new engine packages will be subject to this rule modification,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition.
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When Kyle Busch gets on the track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this week, he’ll be trying to pad his points lead in the Sprint Cup standings and add a win to his league-leading column.
It has been, flatly, a Toyota season. Toyota drivers have led for 2,429 of 5,692 laps in the 19 Cup races, nearly 50 percent, and Busch has led for more than 1,000 laps.
Toyota’s turnaround since last season has been amazing, and Tony Stewart, Busch’s teammate, deserves a lot of credit ... even though he’s still winless on the Cup tour.
Stewart grew up just 50 miles from this track and calls Indy “my home race.” He means the Indy 500 and NASCAR’s 400, and although he hasn’t won the 500, although he did come close, he’ll be going for his third win in the 400 this weekend.
“A race at the Brickyard is more than just a regular points race,” Stewart said. “It’s always been a big race to all the Cup drivers, but then when you grow up in Indiana. it just makes it that much more important.
“I first came with my father when I was probably 5 years old. We were in some bus that had a luggage rack in the top of it. You had to get up at 0-Dark-30 to get on the bus to ride up to Indianapolis for race day. They threw me up in the luggage rack. Somebody gave me a pillow, and everybody started throwing their jackets on top of me to keep me warm.
“We sat in turns 3 and 4, two rows up, right in the middle of the short chute. The hard thing was you could hardly see anything. The cars were so fast, they were a blur.
“But to see those cars under caution, and smell the methanol fumes, it was pretty cool.”
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If Tony Stewart or any other drivers complain about Goodyear’s selection of tires for the fall race in Atlanta race, they can blame Kyle Busch, Travis Kvapil and Scott Riggs. Those three just finished a Goodyear tire test at Atlanta, where Busch was the spring winner.
“The way the surface is, it’s always pretty hard to find a tire that will cooperate with it,” Busch said. “The tire was just too hard here in the spring, and we didn’t even really wear on the tire at all. With the softer compounds Goodyear has been trying, we’ve been able to get a little better grip. We’ve been getting a better feel out of the car.”
Busch tested at 180.662 mph; Riggs at 180.994 mph.
“Goodyear brought a lot of different tires and compounds, and we all pretty much found one tire we liked,” Riggs said. “It was really manageable, consistent and predictable on a long run. It was something you could actually drive and manipulate, to make the car get around the racetrack.
“We all seemed to be in agreement that there was at least one tire we were all happy with.”
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Kyle Busch won’t be focusing just on Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.
He’s running in all three NASCAR races in Indianapolis this weekend, including Saturday’s Nationwide race and Friday’s Truck race at the nearby short track, O’Reilly Raceway Park.