Pretty interesting article on NASCAR.com tonight:
Is it time for NASCAR to put a governor on Toyota power in the Nationwide Series?
Chevrolet driver Clint Bowyer thinks so. He claims the No. 20 Camry is so strong that owner Joe Gibbs could put a monkey behind the wheel and win.
Bowyer, the series points leader, was racing Ford driver Carl Edwards at Daytona recently when eventual race winner Denny Hamlin powered the No. 20 Toyota to the inside of both cars through the first and second corners -- and drove away.
Bowyer and Edwards nearly wrecked in disbelief.
Two weeks earlier, NASCAR had taken engines from a Nationwide race at Milwaukee for dynamometer testing at the sanctioning body's research-and-development center in Concord, N.C. The results of a small sample showed Toyota with a peak horsepower advantage of 21 over Ford, 20 over Chevrolet and four over Dodge.
After Kyle Busch won the July 11 race at Chicagoland in the No. 18 Gibbs Toyota -- the 14th Toyota victory in 20 races to that point -- NASCAR took 10 power plants to Concord for testing: three Toyotas, three Chevrolets, two Fords and two Dodges. In the third dyno test of the season for the Nationwide Series, those 10 not-so-little engines told a different story.
"I know the numbers for every car that was tested, and the whole motor issue sounds a lot quieter this week than it did in weeks past," said Dave Rogers, crew chief for all nine of the No. 20 Toyota's 2008 victories, which have featured four different drivers. "That's because there was a lot of parity.
"If you take out the best and the worst, the first and the 10th car, and you look at those eight in the middle -- and we were in the middle -- there was a lot of parity, more than NASCAR could ask for. You have a two-horsepower spread that captures six or seven cars."
http://www.nascar.com/2008/news/head...ine/index.html