Michael Waltrip had a rather forgettable Daytona 500. But this is Toyota country - TRD headquarters is just down the road in Costa Mesa. And Waltrip is a Toyota man, although right now Waltrip is a man without a country, with no factory backing from any of the three manufacturers officially on the NASCAR tour, Chevy, Ford and Dodge.
Just what Waltrip is doing behind closed doors may not be known until Toyota debuts its NASCAR Camry next February at Daytona.
"There are so many pieces to the puzzle, and when we show up at Daytona next year we want people to say, 'Wow. They've been busy,'" Waltrip said.
"This year has everything to do with '07 as well. We have to run well this year in order to take our Toyotas in '07 and succeed."
Waltrip dismisses complaints by some that Toyota will overwhelm its NASCAR rivals. And he said the Japanese-owned automaker is just as All-American as GM and Ford, in terms of plants and workers.
"So far the fans have been great," Waltrip said. "Toyota has plants all over our country and employs thousands of Americans. Toyota just wants to fit into the NASCAR landscape. Darrell has done a great job of delivering their message to the American public, and we hope to continue that.
"If you'd asked me 20 years ago if Toyota would be in NASCAR, I'd have said no. Now you ask me if Honda is coming, and I can only say, 'Who knows?'
"Remember, the world has changed. It's a global world. They're selling stuff here, we're selling stuff there.
"We're in a different place now that we were 20 years ago."
Toyota will have to test two types of Camrys this season - its version of the present NASCAR Nextel Cup model and its version of the still-under-development car of tomorrow. How involved Waltrip might be in all that testing is unclear; certainly Waltrip isn't interested in talking about it, and Toyota officials have been all but invisible for some time. And when Toyota execs do show up, they talk in platitudes, not specifics.
NASCAR officials are under pressure from General Motors and Ford to "put the Toyota engine back in the box," because the Toyota V-8, which is run on the Truck series, is superior in design and technology to the other three engines in NASCAR. How that political drama plays out could determine the shape of the 2007 balance of power on the Nextel Cup tour.
At the moment Waltrip is driving cars out of Bill Davis' High Point shop, cars with Dodge decals and Dodge parts, but their 1-800 number only reaches DaimlerChrysler attorneys, not its engineers.
So is Waltrip's car this season really a Toyota in disguise? Are Davis and Waltrip using this Nextel Cup season for Toyota development?
They'll never tell.
But Waltrip does "inscrutable" well. As personable as Waltrip, a 42-year-old, two-time Daytona 500 winner can be, and as well as he can handle the media, Waltrip isn't enthusiastic about the media in general. He doesn't bear fools easily, and the motor-sports media, in his eyes, includes far too many who ask dumb questions followed by even dumber questions, a product of the too-rapid expansion of NASCAR into so many "foreign markets" in the past few years.
Waltrip knows the media perhaps better than most, not just because of following his brother's rocky road to fame and fortune, but because Michael Waltrip is part of the media - as a TV commentator on cable weekly. "I generally try to deliver my opinion, and we don't let personal opinions come into it. If we all agree on something, we can't just sit there and ignore it.
"But I will tell you (tongue in cheek here, possibly) that if it's one of our buddies, and the issue is 50-50, we'll side with our buddy. We always side with our friends.
"We're not going to slide any of our friends under the bus. Only the guys that deserve it."
Waltrip is the kind of guy you have to keep a close eye on. He will run a spoof, just to see if you're paying attention.
But he can't spoof much out on the track.
At Daytona he was running ninth on Sunday night with 100 miles to go, when NASCAR hit him with a pit-road speeding penalty that kicked him back to 33rd. He rallied to finish 18th.
Waltrip finished 13th here last fall. "We had a top-10 run before a late caution, and some teams took two tires, some got four, and we got passed by a couple more than I thought we would," Waltrip said.
"I'm pleased with where we are right now as a team," Waltrip said. "As a driver you always want to win every race, but as a car owner you know that isn't very realistic. We were competitive at Daytona, but we didn't have the car that could make up for mistakes. But it ran well in the draft, it handled really good.
"Knowing we can make the car handle gives me confidence we can be competitive at tracks like California and Las Vegas.
"Whether you win the Daytona 500 or not doesn't dictate your season. You have to look at each race individually and attack each one with the same attitude and fierceness. But I would rather win the Daytona 500 than any other race.
"Everyone is about instant gratification, especially in NASCAR. So you've got to take chances to win. We didn't like what we had at the Las Vegas test last month, so we're bringing a different car."
But this season is about building something new as well as racing every week. Does Waltrip really have the fire in the belly to be a car owner? Can he handle those pressures?
"I got the yearning to be a car owner from my brother, Darrell," Waltrip said.
