'Best Ever' Toyota for NASCAR Cup Lived Up to the Hype at Phoenix

• If Toyota’s early-season results didn’t reach any lofty goals, it certainly did at the Shriners Childrens 500 at Phoenix Raceway.

• Before that 312-miler, Toyotas had not qualified or run especially well.

• Phoenix was almost a complete reversal of those first three races.

We sort of expected all along that Toyota’s new XSE model would be good at some point this season. We just didn’t know when it would be good.

Daytona Beach, for NASCAR’s traditional season-opener? There were some hints of it there, but not many. Atlanta? Not an especially great showing. Las Vegas? Some impressive moments, but not enough. Phoenix? Yeah, maybe there, at the first so-called “short track” on the 36-race schedule. Toyota might just find its footing there on the second Sunday in March.

The head man at Toyota TRD had told us in January his company’s new product would be the best it’s ever put on a NASCAR track. This, mind you, after Camrys had won 37 races in the past four seasons, fielded the 2017 Cup Series champion in Martin Truex Jr. and the 2019 champion in Kyle Busch, and had won the 2016, 2017, and 2019 NASCAR’s Manufacturers Championship.

That meant the new XSE would have to be something special to be the best race car TRD had ever fielded.

“I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t pick up (in 2024) where we left off (last year) when it comes to speed,” David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development, said during a preseason media session. “This new Camry body is just badass, it really is. We expect it to be better. We expect it to be better on the speedways (Daytona Beach, Atlanta, and Talladega).

“We’ll have two more cars at Daytona Beach—three with Jimmie Johnson—so we’re actually going to have a manufacturer’s pack of cars. Our pack has always been kind of disappointing, but we’ve now got some numbers (eight teams each weekend, sometimes nine) to work with.

“I’ll get right down to it: all four Joe Gibbs Racing cars should win and make the playoffs. I think this is Ty Gibbs’ year. He’s coming into himself from a confidence perspective (last year’s Rookie of the Year) and from a performance perspective. We expect him to win this year. We expect 23XI Racing (the Denny Hamlin/Michael Jordan team) to do the same… to win and both cars (Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace) to be in the playoffs.

“Honestly, we’ve got a lot to be excited about.”

If Toyota’s early-season results didn’t reach any lofty goals, it certainly did at the Shriners Childrens 500 at Phoenix Raceway. Before that 312-miler, Toyotas had not qualified or run especially well, although it had been good enough down the stretch to have put 10 drivers among the 30 possible top-10 finishers in the year’s first three races. (By contrast, Chevrolet had three victories and 11 top-10 finishers and Ford had nine top-10 finishers).

But Phoenix was almost a complete reversal of those first three races.

Consider:

• Toyotas qualified 1-2-4-6: Hamlin, Gibbs, Eric Jones, and Tyler Reddick. Hamlin was Toyota’s first pole-winner this year and Gibbs matched his career-best qualifying effort.

• Toyota drivers finished the race 1-3-7-10: Christopher Bell, Gibbs, Martin Truex Jr., and Reddick. The third-place was a career-best for Gibbs. (Chris Buescher, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, Ross Chastain, Michael McDowell, and Chase Briscoe were 2-4-5-6-8-9, all but Chastain in Ford’s new Darkhorse Mustang).

• Five Camry SXE drivers combined to led 298 of the 312 laps on the quirky, misaligned 1-mile course west of town: Reddick and Hamlin each led 68 laps, Gibbs led a career-high 57, Martin Truex Jr. 55, and Bell 50, including the final 41. Before Sunday, Toyota had led only 83 of the year’s first 727 laps.

• After not “winning” any of the year’s first six stages, Toyota drivers Bell and Reddick each won a stage at Phoenix. The first stage went to Reddick, Gibbs, Hamlin, and Jones; the second to Bell, Reddick, and Hamlin.

For once—and for good treason—Wilson was a happy man.

“For Toyota, this was a momentous win,” he said after Bell’s seventh career Cup Series victory gave team owner Joe Gibbs his 209th. “This was the first win with our new Camry body. I was clear to say at the beginning of the year that we have struggled here recently. (Only nine top-10 finishes and 15 laps led in the previous four PHX races).

“The secret to longevity in sports, (especially) in motorsports, is never get too high when the day goes your way and never get too low when it doesn’t. We’re going to be racing again next week (at Bristol, Tenn.), so Phoenix will be in our rearview mirror.”

No doubt—and for a change—Wilson and his cronies will enjoy the view. After all, as Bell said post-race, “It was a great day to be in a Toyota.”