![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Logo-TRD-min-1.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Toyota Racing Development (TRD) passed two significant milestones last weekend in both NASCAR and NHRA. With Denny Hamlin driving a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry, the firm earned its 600th overall NASCAR victory when the Virginia driver took checkered flags on Pocono Raceway\u2019s tricky triangle in NASCAR\u2019s premier Cup Series. Just a few minutes after Hamlin earned that victory, in an all-Toyota match-up at Seattle Raceways, four-time NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence beat fellow Toyota racer Doug Kalitta in the final round, giving Toyota its 200th drag racing crown.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t something to sneer at, although that\u2019s what many did when the Japanese manufacturer entered NASCAR\u2019s Goody\u2019s Dash Series in 2000, marking the start of a new era in NASCAR. It took until 2003 for Robert Huffman, who was second in the season-long title fight with Toyota in 2001 and 2002, to earn the manufacturer its first NASCAR championship.<\/p>\n
So much has changed and, despite the fact that both Chevrolet and Ford have more wins – and more seasons under their collective belts – in NASCAR competition, now Toyota is more than a force to be chided. David Wilson, president of TRD, took a look at the company\u2019s achievements in NASCAR, where it has won in all three national touring series, Craftsman Trucks, Xfinity and Cup Series, as well as its 200 straight-line wins in NHRA, but rather than looking back at his firm\u2019s achievements, he\u2019s looking forward to the next ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the competition business, where we compete every weekend in one form or fashion, it\u2019s easy to quickly pat yourself on the back and go on to win No. 601 or No. 201, respectively. But that wouldn\u2019t be appropriate for Toyota. TRD has put so much into motorsport and our commitment to NASCAR – and NHRA – is considerable. We\u2019re looking at 20-plus years of competition, so as we reflect on our journey, we\u2019re extremely proud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
There was skepticism when Toyota entered NASCAR as the first foreign brand to compete against Chevy, Ford and, at that point in time, against Dodge. \u201cWe knew our presence was going to be polarized,\u201d Wilson confirmed. \u201cWe talked to fans, understood their concerns and that helped our strategies, because we knew we had to be driver-centric.\u201d With Toyota\u2019s acknowledged respect for the fans and its cooperation with NASCAR\u2019s players, \u201cNow we\u2019re just one of the competitors\u201d trying to win a race.<\/p>\n
Although he no longer drives a Toyota, after leaving Joe Gibbs Racing at the close of the 2022 season, Kyle Busch has the most NASCAR victories for the brand. His 203 wins in all three national touring series gets the Nevada native great respect from Wilson and TRD. \u201cHe left, but we will alway celebrate his records set for Toyota together, the races, championships and, although he\u2019s not with us anymore, we\u2019re not surprised he picked up where he let off. We continue to wish him well,\u201d Wilson stressed.<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin earned his 61st Toyota win last weekend on Pocono\u2019s tough track and Wilson acknowledged the huge role Hamlin has played. \u201cWatching his maturation as both driver, team owner, as a human being, as a person, we\u2019re proud of that. Consider that 15 years ago it was difficult to have a conversation with Denny about the weather when you were standing next to him on the grid – he\u2019s come a long way.\u201d Hamlin, currently in his contract year, \u201cwill be back, no question in our minds ,in Joe\u2019s (Gibbs\u2019) mind. We\u2019re working through the details and it\u2019s complicated because he\u2019s not only a driver; he\u2019s also an owner. The new contract,\u201d Wilson said, \u201chas to be aligned across all of Denny\u2019s arenas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toyota also has to work with Martin Truex Jr. to discern his upcoming plans – Truex currently leads the Cup Series points standings – and Wilson noted that Coach Gibbs is \u201chappy to give Martin as much time as he needs to confirm or deny\u201d his intention to race for Gibbs and Toyota in the future. Toyota does have a pipeline and is working in the background to form a contingency plan if Truex Jr. elects to hang up his helmet. Of course they\u2019re not talking about it\u2026<\/p>\n
Like any manufacturer entered in competition, Toyota sets numerical targets every season and the most important metric is the playoffs that begin soon in NASCAR\u2019s three touring series. \u201cOur aggressive goal is to be in it for the final race,\u201d held at Phoenix Raceway this November. So far, with 21 points-paying races held in Cup competition, Toyota has won seven of them, despite having fewer cars entered than either Chevy or Ford, their sole competition. In 2007, when Toyota entered Cup Series competition, the goal was not to win those 600 races; it was simply to make the Daytona 500, first race of the year for NASCAR. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to fast-forward 20 years but we were worried we would miss that race in 2007,\u201d Wilson reflected.<\/p>\n
When Toyota hits Indianapolis Motor Speedway, its sports car ace, Kamui Kobayashi will be competing with 23XI Racing, the Denny Hamlin\/Michael Jordan enterprise. He won\u2019t be the only international star at Indy, as Shane van Gisbergen, who won the Cup Series contest on the streets of Chicago is returning, as is Formula One 2009 champ Jenson Button and Brodie Kostecki, currently second in Australian Supercars. Wilson is delighted to see drivers trying different types of competition and thinks Kobayashi\u2019s Indy entry might send the driver to the US for more events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndy wasn\u2019t our first choice for Kamui; that was Watkins Glen, but he had commitments in Japan that weekend he couldn\u2019t get out of. I went to Le Mans this year to announce Kamui\u2019s NASCAR entry for Indy and the European fans were excited. They know his abilities; he\u2019s a name and face known worldwide, especially in Japan where he\u2019s huge.\u201d After Shane van Gisbergen\u2019s conquest in Chicago, \u201cWithout a doubt there is more interest and Kamui\u2019s excitement is palpable.\u201d Kobayashi came to Chicago, witnessed the Australian Supercar champion\u2019s victory and his excitement about racing in America was even more elevated. \u201cKamui is one of the best sports car racers in the world but he\u2019s never run a NASCAR race. These guys thrive on the challenge, measuring themselves against the best in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first team to align with Toyota in NHRA was Kalitta Motorsports, a group that\u2019s had issues getting down the 1,000-foot drag strip the past couple of years. Toyota has been right there with them, with Slugger Labbe helping the three-car nitro team of Doug Kalitta and Shawn Langdon in Top Fuel, together with 2018 Funny Car champ J.R. Todd, as they turn the corner on the season. All three drivers were in the semifinals at Denver, with Doug Kalitta in both Denver and Seattle finals as he works towards his 50th national event win. Todd was runner-up at Seattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cKalitta Motorsports were early adopters in our program,\u201d Wilson stressed. \u201cTaking a chance on this partnership means the world to Toyota. And yes, they have been struggling. But for Toyota, bringing on [Ron] Capps, who gave Toyota its 2022 Funny Car title, Steve and Billy Torrence, the importance of that helped benchmark other teams. Being able to benchmark, no matter the series, is critical. The fact that Ron, Steve and Billy indirectly helped the Kalittas makes me delighted they are making speed again, that Doug is going rounds and starting to turn around their performance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At this time NHRA\u2019s top two Top Fuel points leaders are part of the Toyota family (Steve Torrence and Justin Ashley) and the manufacturer has two of the top three in Funny Car, Capps and Alexis DeJoria are second and third with their Toyota GR Supra race cars. \u201cWe\u2019ve been hard at it the last couple of years and yes, one of our teams lost their way a little bit but we\u2019re always searching for improvement. You never think you\u2019re better than anyone else,\u201d Wilson stated. \u201cWe\u2019re always searching for improvement and those feelings are momentary.\u201d<\/p>\n
In both NASCAR and NHRA, \u201c2023 is shaping up to be a special season for us. The current regular season points leaders in both NASCAR and NHRA are Toyota-based and we\u2019re leading in IMSA\u2019s GTD category, leading in ARCA and USAC. It\u2019s a really special season and a tribute to absolute reflection on this TRD team, reflection on Toyota and our commitment to North American motorsports. Racing shapes our brands and gives us more awareness. There\u2019s still a lot of racing to be done and the wheels could fall off any moment,\u201d he chided. \u201cThat, Wilson said, \u201cis a function of racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Toyota’s Gazoo Racing recently hit two massive milestone in American racing circles with big wins.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":91825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3424,3470,5029,3399],"tags":[9267,2648,1531,511,3355,4730,682,127,4437,7,442,9273,516,9392,2649],"class_list":["post-91824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","category-nhra","tag-camping-world-drag-racing-series","tag-craftsman-truck-series","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-doug-kalitta","tag-joe-gibbs-racing","tag-kalitta-motorsports","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-nhra","tag-ron-capps","tag-torrence-racing","tag-toyota","tag-toyota-racing-development","tag-xfinity-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Logo-TRD-min-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-nT2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91824"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91833,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91824\/revisions\/91833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}