Mammoth Blog

If Dale Earnhardt Jr. is going to win the Daytona 500, it looks like he's got a sizeable horsepower disadvantage to overcome, judging from NASCAR's post-150s chassis-dyno tests, which showed Toyota's Tony Stewart had at least a 15 horsepower edge at his rear wheels over Chevy's Earnhardt in Thursday's twin races.

And Richard Childress' Chevy engines were about 30 horsepower off the Toyotas, which is some concern in both the Childress camp and with GM officials.

NASCAR didn't post any official numbers, but Stewart's engine - built by Mark Cronquist, head of Joe Gibbs' motor shop - pulled around 462 to 464 effective horsepower, according to those familiar with the results. That's about 15 horsepower more than Earnhardt had and about 30 horsepower more than Chevy's Kevin Harvick.

"We've got some work to do," was all Clint Bowyer, Harvick's teammate at Childress', would say.

Ford's Doug Yates, the veteran engine builder and now car owner, had expressed worries about the powerful Toyota engines during January testing. However yesterday Yates was in a better mood: "From Talladega till now, we've made great gains, and we're close. But I didn't need a chassis dyno to know who has the best engine here.

"I do feel better now than I did at Talladega about our chances. Our horsepower was in the high 450s. But our problem is we've got to get our car driving good ... and keep the tires on it. And if we can do that, we may get some good results here ... and then go on to Fontana.

"But it's clear that what Toyota started last year is coming to fruition. And the standard Toyota model of 'coming in slow, and then signing the best teams, and putting heat on people' it's here.

"We've got a new engine we plan to submit (to NASCAR) in September, and we wanted to see and evaluate what everybody else is doing first. And I know what I like right now. So we'll just go from there."

Chevrolet's Pat Suhy, the racing field boss, said Stewart's Toyota engine was that much stronger than Earnhardt's, and Suhy said all the engine numbers "show we've got work to do.

"We've just got to go take a look at what we're doing and how we're doing it. And our teams have to take a hard look at what they're doing. There's no fundamental reason that all the Chevys can't be the same.... and there's no fundamental reason that they can't be as good as Toyota and Ford.

"The Dodges ran strong (Chip Ganassi's Reed Sorenson in particular), and there was a Ford or two in there. That tells me fundamentally we don't have a problem.

"I think the best Hendrick engine here was eight (horsepower) down to the best Toyota engine. And I think a good driver here can make up eight horsepower easily."

As Earnhardt perhaps showed in beating Stewart to win today's Shootout.

"Toyota definitely has more horsepower, and the momentum is going to get harder and harder to overcome," said Dodge's Robbie Loomis, general manager at Petty Enterprises. "And, yes, they're really strong on the track, too, with Stewart and Michael Waltrip, who's a good drafter, too. But I think they can be overcome in the race by handling."

The other side of the engine situation here, though, is durability, which has been a major question in the Toyota camp and in the Hendrick camp.

While Toyota's Lee White, the company's field director, said that none of his engines have actually blown up, he did point to four teams that had problems with "premature wear" of engine-valve lifters in engines for Dale Jarrett, Stewart, AJ Allmendinger and J. J. Yeley. White said he's comfortable the problem has been solved. "And in my opinion it's not a 'Toyota' problem," White said, "because Bill Davis hasn't had any of these problems with his Terry Elledge-built engines."

Others in the Toyota camp aren't as confident the problems have been fixed.

What might be going on at Hendrick's is not clear either. White said he didn't think now that Hendrick men were facing the same problems as Toyota but that Hendrick might have had an issue with qualifying engine setups.

Dave Blaney's engine problem Thursday was not a blown engine, White said, but a mis-set oil line, which dragged on the track and broke.

The rash of engine issues, White said "shows that everyone is pushing this to the very edge, because it's the Daytona 500.

"We ran all January at Daytona, at Las Vegas and at Fontana, and never had an issue, with engines from three different builders. Then we come here and have this issue.

"Hey, maybe this is just because this week we're running 400 RPM less than in January, with a different gear.

"I'm just glad we found our problem last Friday, instead of Wednesday like Hendrick did.

"If Mark Cronquist is telling his drivers that everything is good, I think they're happy. And our other guys are happy too."

But White won't accept the nod that Toyota is favored to win the Daytona 500: "No way," he said. "We're the underdogs. The Hendrick guys are still the ones with the bull's eye on their backs.

"And, good, I hope they sweat a little bit. They won half the races last year; they need to sweat a little."

Tony Stewart must love Toyota. Not only is he opening the season hot on the Cup side of the fence, with his new cars, but last night he took the pole for Saturday's 300-miler, the first event of NASCAR's newly rebadged Nationwide series, for 25 years known as the Busch series.

Stewart (180.937 mph) said the traditional stock cars he'll be running in NASCAR's Saturday series drive much better than the Cup tour's winged cars. "When I got in this car, it felt as comfortable as an old pair of shoes," Stewart said. "Where we really have our hands full is with the Cup cars."

Chevy's Clint Bowyer will be on the outside of the front row for the 1:15 p.m. start today.

Meanwhile, it appears that NASCAR's hopes of putting some pizzazz into its long-suffering Saturday series (Nationwide) may be foundering.

Dodge's Mike Accavitti, that company's racing boss, as director of brand and SRT marketing, said he's fired up about the tentative plans to rebadge NASCAR's second-tier tour as more of a muscle-car, pony-car tour.

And Ford's Dan Davis, head of racing, hints that he would like to put the Mustang out on that tour too, though Ford may have to wait for Chevrolet to make a decision about how to market its slick new Camaro.

Chevrolet executives seem to be the ones holding up the NASCAR game plan, with Camaro's own marketing officials not very enthusiastic about NASCAR in general.

For the past many years the Saturday stock-car series has been little more a Cup-Lite series, filled with Cup regulars - owners and drivers - and cars identical to the relatively staid Cup models such as the Impala, Fusion and Camry.

So why not just run the Mustang as a NASCAR "muscle car" on that tour and try to the 18-34 demographic?

"It's not that simple," Davis said. "If you've got a car that's selling really, really well, do you have to go pump up and spend a lot of money and effort and time on a car that sells itself?

"In a lot of cases, what you're trying to do is get your vehicles out there that may not be as well known, and put those nameplates in front of you.

"If you've got a car that's sold-out, every one of them you make is sold, why would you spend extra money, time and effort trying to build up the brand?

"It is a complex thing when you look at it. And you have to look at what's happening in the future and what your plans are for new models.

"It may seem real simple at the beginning, but when you start to peel that onion back, it's not all that easy."

? Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. source