{"id":23435,"date":"2019-02-16T17:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T23:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23435"},"modified":"2019-02-16T18:42:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T00:42:11","slug":"competitive-debut-of-toyotas-supra-highlights-daytona-xfinity-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/16\/competitive-debut-of-toyotas-supra-highlights-daytona-xfinity-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Competitive debut of Toyota\u2019s Supra highlights Daytona Xfinity race"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Seven months have passed since Toyota<\/strong> unveiled the competition version of its new Supra<\/strong> at Daytona International Speedway<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the car made its much-anticipated debut at the iconic track in the NASCAR Racing Experience 300 Xfinity Series<\/a> race.<\/p>\n

Fans got a good look at the fifth-generation production version of the Supra last month at the Detroit Motor Show. On Saturday, they\u2019ll find out how well the car races in its maiden season.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Brandon Jones, driver of the #19 Juniper Toyota, drives next to Tyler Reddick, driver of the #2 Pinnacle Financial Partners Chevrolet, during the NASCAR Xfinity Series NASCAR Racing Experience 300 at Daytona International Speedway on February 16, 2019 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Those of you that were following Barrett Jackson (auctions), you saw that the first Supra that’s actually going to come off the assembly line sold at Barrett Jackson for charity for $2.1 million,\u201d said Ed Laukes, group vice president of marketing for Toyota Motors North America. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf that’s any indication about the Supra coming back into the market after not being around for 22 years, it’s a very exciting time for us at Toyota, very exciting time to have us at Daytona.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laukes appeared on Friday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway with Joe Gibbs and Bob Leavine, two car owners who will carry the Toyota banner in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series this season.<\/p>\n

With NASCAR already discussing plans for a Generation-7 Cup car with its OEMs, will the Supra replace the Camry and join the Cup series in 2021 to compete with Ford\u2019s Mustang and Chevrolet\u2019s Camaro?<\/p>\n

Laukes demurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve talked about that for a while,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’re still\u2026 unlike some of the other manufacturers, we’re still in the car business, and we plan on staying in the car business for a while. <\/p>\n

\u201cCamry and Corolla are still a big part of our company. So, at this point, we don’t have any plans to bring Supra up to Cup, but you never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long before that decision is made, Gibbs will try to win a third Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET Sunday on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Gibbs got his first with Dale Jarrett in 1993 and had to wait another 23 years for Denny Hamlin to deliver the second.<\/p>\n

Former Joe Gibbs Racing president J.D. Gibbs, who died last month at age 49 from a neurological disease, was a tire changer for Jarrett\u2019s winning car. Hamlin hopes to win a second Daytona 500 and dedicate the victory to his former boss.<\/p>\n

But that will be a tall order, as Gibbs knows only too well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to kid people\u2026 I talked to them for a while there, we won the Daytona 500 once, and we’ve been here about 24 times,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cI\u2019d say, sooner or later, come on, a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then, come on, give me one. To win it twice\u2026 but you think about it, we’ve won twice in 27 tries.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it’s extremely hard. So much can happen. And everybody here, I think that’s the exciting thing for our fans. If you’re coming off (Turn) 4, OK? We’ve come off of 4 I don’t know how many times leading, and we haven’t won the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo everybody is excited about it. Everybody realizes that that can happen at the Daytona 500. It’s a thrill to win it for sure, but it’s extremely hard to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leavine is new to Toyota this year, having switched from Chevrolet, but he expects Leavine Family Racing to enjoy a strong season with driver Matt DiBenedetto and an affiliation with JGR.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transition was and is very intense,\u201d Leavine said. \u201cIt’s also exciting for Leavine Family Racing. Both of these organizations have assisted in the transition. Unless you’ve been there, you have no idea the technical portion that goes on, and I stand back, I’m kind of operation and not marketing-related, and I enjoy the operation and to watch what Coach’s people have helped our people do, and Toyota and TRD. What they have done is truly amazing, over the time period that we had.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur people worked really hard with theirs, and together we got a car on the track, and they’re working hard for our West Coast Swing, Atlanta, so the transition has gone exceptionally well, considering what we had to go through\u2014a lot of communication\u2014and both of these organizations here were on top of everything we needed and provided for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Seven months have passed since Toyota unveiled the competition version of its new Supra at Daytona International Speedway. On Saturday, the car made its much-anticipated debut at the iconic track in the NASCAR Racing Experience 300 Xfinity Series race. Fans got a good look at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[287,16,181,686],"class_list":["post-23435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-toyota-supra"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/NXS_DIS1_Jones_Reddick_021619.jpg?fit=4251%2C2835","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-65Z","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23435"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23439,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23435\/revisions\/23439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}