The difference a year makes can be dramatic and Team Toyota is proving that theory right as the manufacturer prepares for its second year in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition. While teams racing under the Toyota banner seemed to struggle during pre-season testing a year ago, the manufacturer has flourished the second time around as the majority of Toyota teams were among the top cars during single-laps runs at the annual Pre-Season Thunder test session at Daytona International Speedway.
The #44 UPS Racing Team has been busy during the months of December and January preparing for the upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and, in particular, the Daytona 500. The team is charged with the task of giving Dale Jarrett a proper send-off as he nears retirement and they got off to a good start during pre-season testing at Daytona International Speedway.
The #44 UPS Toyota was the fastest car during the first session of testing on Monday, January 14 with Jarrett's lap of 48.652 seconds. Jarrett improved on that time during the second session of the day to turn in a lap time of 48.572 seconds -- a time that was beat by only three other drivers. Fellow Toyota driver Dave Blaney turned in the fastest lap of the day with a time of 48.532 seconds.
"The cars have just been really fast in single car runs," Jarrett said. "We can thank David Reutimann for a lot of this because he was here the first week of testing. They learned a lot that allowed the UPS Team and the NAPA Team to come down here and be fast right from the start."
The Toyota teams were among the fastest during the sessions in which single-lap runs were the test activity. In drafting practice a variety of teams and manufacturers comprised the top spots. Although the Toyota teams weren't the fastest in drafting sessions, Jarrett said it shouldn't be a cause for alarm.
"As far as the drafting sessions go, when you get into that you can make those times look like whatever you want depending on where you want to get," Jarrett said. "If you want to get out of line and fall back about eight or ten car lengths and you have somebody to push you up, then you can make a big time out of that. But if you just want to get yourself in the middle of that pack and see what your car is going to do there then you're not going to see that big number or that good number to put you towards the top of the board."
"We were trying a number of things as far as race set-ups go and just trying to get the car to where I felt like I could keep it wide open for a lot of laps because in every one of these races that I have ever seen -- that's what wins them," Jarrett continued. "In each of the three Daytona 500s that I won – that is what won the race. It wasn't necessarily the best driver, it was the best car and I'm pretty sure that if you talked to every other driver that's won this race they would tell you the same thing. The Toyotas do have good speed and the teams have worked extremely hard on this program. When we were here last year we were just trying to throw everything together as quick as we possibly could just to be here. A year has gone by and a lot has happened in that amount of time to make us much better."
Overall, Michael Waltrip Racing and Team Toyota made great strides from testing at Daytona one year ago to the tests that took place during the last two weeks. Car owner Michael Waltrip said the organization is very encouraged by the Daytona test results.
"It's a world of difference," Waltrip said. "We are very optimistic about getting everything we can out of this car. Last year we just didn't have enough car but this year it is a really comforting feeling to know that our cars are this fast now. Now it's about our team getting the cars as tuned up as we can and getting as much out of them as possible. We felt pretty good about things coming down here and to see that play out as we expected gives me a lot of confidence. In less than a month we will be back here and hopefully not a lot of things will change between now and then."
