CONCORD, N.C. -- His trademark fedora might as well be the red, white and blue top hat worn by Uncle Sam. From his first days as a Ford engineer, Jack Roush has been a staunch proponent of American enterprise. Years ago, when one of his employees showed up for work driving a yellow, Japanese-made pickup truck, Roush paid the man in yen.

Now it's not yen, but U.S. dollars that have the NASCAR team owner concerned -- specifically, the vast quantities of them that the world's second-largest carmaker is allegedly spending to lure top talent into its fold. Toyota doesn't make its Nextel Cup debut until the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18, but tales about the size of its checkbook and the sheer amounts of cash it's lavishing on people have already reached mythological proportions.

"It's like Bigfoot. You hear folklore," said Mike Accavitti, director of motorsports operations for Dodge. "It's like, 'They gave this guy $10 billion and free engines for the rest of his life!'"

But to Roush, it's no joke. He's made over $220 million in 18 seasons as a car owner on NASCAR's premier series, but says Roush Racing turns a profit of only 3 to 5 percent each year. So what happens if a Toyota team, backed by a manufacturer that isn't suffering from the financial crunch plaguing domestic carmakers, approaches a top driver like Matt Kenseth or Greg Biffle and offers to double his salary?

"At the end of Greg's or Matt's contract with me, if they want to offer them twice as much money, which they have the ability to do ... I've got to come back and have an influx of money coming from another direction that causes me to operate in the red by what I have to spend versus what I raise," Roush said. "If I have to go 20 percent upside down, I'm faced with the same scenarios I had when I came in in 1988: How long can I stay, and what's my confidence that it's going to turn around?"

Yet whether Toyota is really using outrageous salaries to stock its Nextel Cup outfits is a matter of debate. The most vocal criticism has come from those affiliated with Ford, which lost driver Dale Jarrett and his UPS sponsorship to Michael Waltrip's startup Toyota team. In a Jan. 17 New York Times report, Ford Racing head Dan Davis called Toyota "predators," claiming he had heard Waltrip signed Jarrett for $20 million, and that another Toyota team, Red Bull, lured engineer John Probst from Ford by doubling or tripling his salary.

But salaries in NASCAR are closely-guarded secrets, and much about what one manufacturer knows about another, Accavitti said, is often little more than hearsay. Toyota officials won't deny that wages are one way to attract key personnel, but add that the money for those wages is coming from the teams, not the manufacturer itself. And as for rumors of those massive paychecks, Marty Gaunt can sum them up in one word.

"Can I say bull----? Can you print that? Obviously, you're always going to hear that. I think we heard it before when other manufacturers came on. But some of the numbers people are tossing around are totally absurd," said the general manager of Team Red Bull, the operation Davis accused of buying Probst.

"Obviously, it's a good marketplace right now for anybody who's looking at going to a different establishment or team, because there are so many teams out there. But by no means are we going to pay an inflated price to get an employee over, because then they're coming for one reason and one reason only, and that's for the money. You cannot build a good team like that. We are here to build the long-term vision of what Red Bull has for this race team. So it's bull----."

Added Toyota team owner Bill Davis: "Felix Sabates and Rick Hendrick and Robert Yates, I can talk about a lot of people that pay a hell of a lot more money than I do. A hell of a lot more money. And will pay whatever it takes to go hire somebody," he said.

"I don't know what those other two [Toyota teams] are paying, and I don't care. I know where our salary level is at, and it's, I think, within reason. Our guys certainly aren't underpaid. But we don't go offer somebody a whole ton of money to come work for us."

That doesn't dissuade Roush, whose engineering company has a branch in Japan, and says Japanese are "more aggressive" in business than Americans are. He remembers when he first broke into NASCAR in 1988, with three key employees -- driver Mark Martin, crew chief Robin Pemberton, and general manager Steve Hmiel -- and enough money saved up that he could race two years without sponsorship if he needed to.

The amount of money he received from Ford that first year, he said, was 5 percent of his operating budget. The next year it increased to 10 percent, a number that's remained steady. He believes Ford can push that number to 12 or 14 percent next year, but won't be able to match what Toyota is putting into its teams. Long-term, he believes that could drive some organizations out of the sport.

"There's a huge difference. You say Dodge or Chevrolet has to put twice as much money into their teams, that means they either have to spend twice as much in total, or they have to support half the number of teams, which has its own consequence," Roush said.

"One way or another, if they come in and do what they've historically done in other series, the model changes enough that somebody's going to have to pony up to the bar and pay a lot more money, or there are going to be fewer teams to support. Either one of those circumstances are bad."

But Roush's gloom-and-doom prospects are a minority view among the sport's major car owners. Richard Childress said that if one of his employees was offered a better deal somewhere else, he'd tell him to take it. Yates said he can see the argument from both sides, having been a race shop employee before moving into ownership. Joe Gibbs Racing president J.D. Gibbs points out that raiding other teams --remember Yates, hiring away most of Jeff Gordon's pit crew in 2001? -- is nothing new.

"The reality of it is, you don't need Toyota to have a cutthroat business. It's a cutthroat business whether they're there or not. There are guys getting hired, guys getting pulled away from teams, it doesn't matter who the manufacturers are. I don't care if there are no manufacturers, it's still going to be a cutthroat business," Gibbs said.

"Obviously, there's a concern there. How that changes the landscape, I don't know. If that means other manufacturers have to step up, OK. But from watching them, I think they're going to have a hard year. I think they're patient. You watch the truck series, they were patient. They took their time, and they're rolling. But this isn't the truck series."

Dodge's Accavitti believes Toyota officials are too smart to overspend at the beginning; what they're paying now is a baseline, he said, and the numbers will only go up. And Rick Hendrick believes the sport's best people want to be in a position to not only make money, but also to win -- something few think Toyota will be capable of immediately.

"There will come a day when it gets completely out of hand, and it's going to hurt everybody. But if you look at what Jimmie Johnson won this year, and he's going to leave to go somewhere else for a million dollars more, and he's going to give up $16 million in earnings and all the royalties that come with it, then he needs to go back to school," said Hendrick, who owns the car of the reigning series champion.

"Right now, I think the good guys want to be with the good teams. It's going to take an awful lot to break up [Greg] Zipadelli and Tony Stewart, or Chad [Knaus] and Jimmie Johnson. They want to win. You win, and all the rest of it will happen. The money will come. I don't see Toyota out there writing big checks for key people right now. I don't see that happening."

Besides, he has bigger concerns as the 2007 season draws near.

"I'm not as worried about Toyota. I'm worried about Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth and [Kasey Kahne in] the 9 car. Those are the guys I'm worried about," he said. "I'll worry about Toyota when the time comes."