Full Throttle

Since Michael Waltrip’s move to a new team and financial tie-up with Toyota, rumors of who his second driver would be have run rampant. Some have suggested he has been acting as Toyota’s Trojan Horse.

Waltrip even thought being a Trojan Horse was pretty cool until he did a little research on the Internet. “Actually, it isn’t a compliment,” Waltrip said during last week’s rant about the media’s portrayal of him. “It means I’m just a figurehead for Toyota - and I am not. It’s my money. I’m the one making this huge investment.”

After a week of reading how Toyota was courting Ricky Rudd, Dale Jarrett and Robby Gordon (among others) and was also hiring away crew members Mikey had to set the record straight, Toyota doesn’t have their corporate hand up the back of his firesuit as if he were the second coming of a Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy routine either, he’s his own man.

“They are just my manufacturing partner,” Waltrip added. “Just like NAPA is my partner and Domino’s is my partner or Burger King or whoever. That’s the story. I know I’m not going to change the world with one press conference, but if I could read something other than ‘Toyota is messing up our sport,’ it would be refreshing.”

Not surprisingly, Toyota backs up his story. “People think we’re masterminding everything,” notes Lee White, Toyota’s senior vice president for racing. “They think we’re pulling the strings like our teams are puppets. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

White also lays the smackdown to the Robby Gordon rumors:

“We have three teams and we’ve got our hands full trying to build enough pieces for them,” White said. “We’re not interested in expanding. Those teams want and expect to run two cars each. We might be able to do a seventh car for one of them if they came to us and said, ‘We’ve got a sponsor that we want to run,’ but that would be the absolute limit.”

Note the “seventh car out.” What’s that they say about spotting a lot of smoke and its possible origins?

White does paint a plausible scenario for why the rumor train has been running at full speed. Toyota, and its announced team associations, are being played off against the other auto makers and non Toyota teams. “They play off us with their manufacturers,” he explained. “When we got into trucks, you wouldn’t believe the teams that called us looking for deals. Then they use it as leverage with their current manufacturer.”

Highly likely I should think, it’s the exact tactic I would employ if in the middle of a multi-million dollar shell game. It’s similar to the World Series of Poker, sometimes a bluff takes the pot, sometimes not. But many times it’s worth the gambit. And this game doesn’t cost the player any ante up front. Just float a rumor and hope for a big payout. Whether that pot raked in comes from your current team or Toyota, it all spends the same.

Toyota expects to track test its Cup car in mid-to-late June at Atlanta. It also has to build a new Tundra for the ‘07 Truck series and the Car of Tomorrow for next year.

Waltrip has committed to running two cars in the Busch Series and has hired David Reutimann to drive one of them. Toyota would like to have up to six cars in Busch. Toyota is also committed to staying in the Truck series.

Cross Posted @ Fast Machines.

Toyota, NASCAR, NEXTEL Cup, Busch Grand National Series, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Michael Walitrip, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle