The Good Old Boy-sans Come to Daytona

On February 18 there will be a major fluctuation in the force. On of the bastions of American culture - NASCAR - is about to be invaded by Toyota. While NASCAR was until recently a Southern sport with mainly regional interest it has grown gigantically in the past few years. It is now a monster money printing machine. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area the NASCAR race is in Sonoma County which culturally is about as far away as you can get from the South.

Toyota will be racing the Camry at Daytona. Calling this a Camry is like calling the other cars Chevys and Fords. NASCAR employs a body design that has the rough shape of the car named and an engine manufactured by said company but the rest of the car is anything but stock. The engines specifications try to stay true to stock engines demanding such things as carburation and steel blocks. But I digress.

Most of the Camry's sold in the US are made in Kentucky. Toyota has become an American car - sort of.

In addition to the coming of Toyota the 2007 NASCAR season will also feature Colombian driver Juan Pablo Montoya. In short it looks as if NASCAR is planning on taking over the planet.

There are two things happening here: 1) NASCAR is broadening its appeal probably in an attempt to inculcate international interest and 2) it is recognizing that Toyota makes cars in the U.S. and should be part of the sport. It also sends a signal to the Big Three auto manufacturers that they'd better keep playing in the NASCAR game.

This is the reaction of Jack Roush, one of the heavyweight team owners, "Americans shouldn't buy Japanese cars," Roush said. "When we're faced with the prospect of having somebody come into our world and strip our economy of its essence, and go convey that for interests that are abroad, then we're not doing the right things for our country. If we're forced, based on the fact that we can't be competitive or that their consumers won't buy as many things from our manufacturers and our workers as we buy from theirs, well, then there's a train wreck coming."

Really Roush may be concerned about the increased cost of remaining competitive when another player particularly one with deep-pockets shows up.

In 2007 Toyota will for the first time probably surpass GM in world auto sales. The American automobile industry is no longer the dominant force which it once was. The reasons are myriad. Some of it is economic: American car manufactures are locked into pension agreement which add significantly to the cost of production and Japanese manufacturers has simply passed them both in design and in manufacturing technology and in attention to quality.

The key to success at Toyota is the Toyota Production System created by Sakichi Toyoda based in part on the work of W. Edwards Deming. (Links are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming.)

The United States is not totally behind is advanced production techniques. The best known may be Six Sigma a series of practices developed by Motorola. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma)

NASCAR is all about money. Toyota has a lot of money to spend and this is going to create angst not just for the American auto manufacturers but more so for the big teams which need to spend a ton of money (Hendrick, Rouch, Gibbs).

The success of NASCAR has been largely a secret in the mainstream media. 17 of the top 20 sporting events by attendance last year were NASCAR races. The two brothers who own NASCAR are each worth (according to Forbes magazine) more than $1.2 billion.

In a sense the coming to NASCAR of Toyota and the success that is likely to have is another step on the road to globalization. The folks in North Carolina are going to have to learn to deal with it.

One of the most interesting aspects about NASCAR is their ability to change rules and specifications as often as necessary to maintain competition. While "parity" may have made the NFL boring the ability to have a 500 mile race decided by tens of feet is what makes NASCAR compelling. Once the season starts if one body design or engine spec has a clear advantage it is nerfed to make it less dominant.

The relevant issues here are the economic power of NASCAR, the blurring of the line between US and foreign cars and the importance of not just technology but of sophisticated manufacturing methodologies. Some of this is about auto safety. These are cars which can have accidents at speeds of 160 mph and have the driver walk away.

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Dick Lepre

Comments

[Joel]

I'll be amazed if more than 3 Toyota's make the Daytona 500. Competition is fierce and BDR, the most experienced Toyota team has only 1 car guaranteed so far. Michael Waltrip, Toyota's flagship team, Mikey, we love you but you need to be consistantly fast and I don't think MWR is going to be there this year. Best of luck to Toyota but it's a long road ahead and there will be many mishaps along the way.