Toyota falling flat in first Nextel Cup racing season

Remember when Jack Roush was so worked up prior to the 2007 season about Toyota's entry into Nextel Cup racing?

Remember how Roush took on a partner, the Fenway Group, and suggested he was doing so in large part to fend off the Toyota invasion into the sport? And how folks joked that Roush did so just so he could take an unlimited supply of baseball bats to the foreign-based manufacturer?

• Send Joe your thoughts

Well, five races into the season, it looks as if there was no need for Roush to line up all that wood. It looks as if Roush could have taken Toyota to the woodshed with a single wiffle-ball bat instead.

As the Nextel Cup Series prepares for this weekend's race at Martinsville, where for the first time this season the top 35 competitors are assured of racing Sunday based on 2007 owners points, the only Toyota guaranteed a spot on the starting grid is the No. 44 driven by Dale Jarrett -- and that's only because Jarrett still can use a past champion's provisional if he doesn't make it in on speed.

Otherwise, Jarrett would be in the same precarious position as all the other Toyotas trying to make the race. Shut out for the time being outside the top 35 in owners points, they will have to turn a decent qualifying lap to get in as they jockey with each other and others for the few remaining spots left.

So much for Toyota coming in and dominating Nextel Cup right off the bat -- pardon the pun. Lee White, general manager of Toyota Racing Development, says he could have told everyone so, and insists he pretty much did whenever it was pointed out that Toyota quickly enjoyed great success when it entered the Craftsman Truck Series a few years back.

"We knocked them dead in the Truck Series. But that is a light year away from the Cup series," White said. "We said that all along and now I hope people are starting to at least believe when I tell them we're in this for the long haul. We're going to be patient."

They're going to have to be. Heading into this weekend, the top Toyota in the owners points standings is the No. 22 of Dave Blaney, owned by Bill Davis Racing, and sitting in 36th. The No. 83 driven by Brian Vickers of Red Bull Racing is next in 38th, followed by Jarrett's No. 44 of struggling Michael Waltrip Racing in 39th. (Continued)