Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Toyota.

I seem to have this ongoing and tumultuous relationship with NASCAR. Ideally I would like to be able to say that I love all forms of motorsport, but NASCAR keeps holding me back. I really do have a diverse love for all forms of racing. I can get excited about everything from Formula One to off road rallying to dirt track sprint cars. For some reason I can't get excited about NASCAR. Each season I get all hyped up for the Daytona 500 and all the little races that surround it but then fall into a disillusioned boredom as the season wanes away into a legion of races that all appear to be identical. This season hold little hope of being any different, save one thing. This year, in an attempt to break out from their rural (read redneck) roots, NASCAR has allowed Toyota to enter the sport. This decision has sparked vigorous opposition from some of the established "rural" team owners. A barrage of ethnocentric idiocy has been thrown into the media. The basic argument appears to be that NASCAR is an "American" sport, and Toyota is not an American company. The funny thing is that the people levelling these accusations appear oblivious to the fact that in many facets Toyota makes more cars in the U.S. and employs more American workers than the "American" companies that the accuser represents. The secondary accusation that the established teams make is that Toyota will enter the sport with such a massive budget that they will buy up all of the good talent and build such high tech cars that they will effectively buy championships. This is also funny because, as I understand it, one of the appeals of NASCAR is that the cars are so tightly regulated that they are basically identical, therefore making it impossible to build a "high tech" car. A knowledge of recent history would also serve the NASCAR good old boys well. In 2002 Toyota entered Formula One with much fanfare. Their F1 team has spent an estimated $400 million each season (the largest budget in F1) and have yet to win a single race. That's right, they have invested somewhere around $2 billion into sport with no success for five years.

So it appears that the NASCAR boys have nothing to worry about, or do they? Toyota does have a massive amount of money to spend, and money sometimes leads to championships. Toyota also has a wealth of racing history and experience to draw from. The real concern for the NASCAR establishment has less to do with Toyota itself than it has to do with the idea of Toyota. The doors to the sport have been opened up to new companies, who knows who will come knocking? One company that is at the forefront of my mind is Honda. Honda has a huge market in America and has an even larger rivalry with Honda. Toyota's entry into F1 in 2002 was largely due to a desire to take on Toyota in popular forum. Don't be surprised if Honda decides to return the favor in NASCAR. That could mean serious trouble for the American teams.

While a Honda/Toyota NASCAR rivalry may be a pipe dream, I have found my point of interest for this year's NASCAR season. I want to see Toyota thrash the dickens out of those backwoods NASCAR boys. It probably won't happen this year, but a man can hope,