Everett Mugg Commentary 6-30-06

Toyota in ARCA, and the Car of Tomorrow?

June 30, 2006

Everett Mugg - SCR

Heads turned and tongues started wagging at Michigan Int. Speeday two weeks ago when two men wearing Toyota shirts walked out of the ARCA official’s trailer with ARCA Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Mark Gundrum. The trio headed towards the pit area while everyone else went off to the drivers meeting. The event begs the question, “Eh, what’s up with that?”

“It’s nothing really, we’ve talked with them before,” commented ARCA President Ron Drager, when asked about it after the drivers meeting. He went on to say that they, (the Toyota personnel), were there for the truck race and took the opportunity to see how ARCA ran things. His further comments went along with his response to the “Car of Tomorrow” (COT) issue.

“The Car of Tomorrow is set to be phased in Nextel Cup over a couple of years,” explained Drager, “which will give our teams the opportunity to buy the cars Nextel Cup will be running until then. I don’t see any changes in ARCA for several years after that.”

The conversation brought out the fact that many ARCA teams buy equipment and get technical help from Cup teams. Trying to change to the COT at the same time as Cup does would be too expensive for the ARCA teams. By not doing so, he believes that the teams will benefit from the on hand equipment for which the Cup teams will no longer be able to use. He did not rule out a change in a few years however, and the discussion turned to the likelihood of it.

As the COT design is going to be the exclusive car of NASCAR and ARCA has such close ties with NASCAR, it seems almost inevitable that the COT and Toyota will find their way into ARCA. NASCAR teams will have older equipment to sell and ARCA teams will still need cost efficient cars and technical assistance. Young drivers will still need a place to get experience in NASCAR type cars on super speedways, (IE: development teams and drivers). With the Busch series having become nothing more than an extra practice session for Cup drivers, aspiring drivers have to get their experience somewhere. ARCA is the place. Being pushed out of the Busch series by the Cup teams, Busch teams moving over to ARCA is a logical step.

Unstated was that Toyota will be entering Cup next year at the beginning of the COT “changeover”, so it is unlikely that they would have enough surplus to benefit an ARCA team at this point. This situation could change however if ARCA switches to the COT. At that point, it would be to Toyota’s benefit to enter into ARCA. As stated above they would then have a place to develop drivers, test equipment and sell off surplus. While Mr. Drager was understandably reticent on the subject, he seemed optimistic about the years to come in ARCA racing.

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