LAS VEGAS -- As he prepared for Saturday's Sam's Town 300 in the Nationwide Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kevin Harvick said he was feeling outgunned.

Harvick, known mostly for his exploits as a driver in the Sprint Cup Series, also is a part-time driver and full-time car owner on the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series sides. He said, point blank, that Toyota has more horsepower than everyone else in all three garages and that he believes the difference in power between his Chevrolet engines and Toyota's engines is significant.

"I think everybody in the garage is down on horsepower compared to what the Toyotas are," Harvick said. "In the Nationwide Series, it's almost a joke about how much power they make compared to everybody else. I feel good that our team has made gains in the engine department power-wise, but it's hard when you're racing almost restrictor-plate races every week and you're racing against cars that are making 20-plus more horsepower than you. It's hard to keep up. Hopefully that's the reason we put these inserts in these motors, to keep the fields even.

"Obviously the whole field is not completely stupid. They've been here for a long time, and that particular brand makes more power than everybody else in the garage. That's obviously got something to do with the parts and pieces that they have compared to everybody else."

Jack Roush, co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing, runs Fords. His driver, Carl Edwards, won the Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway this past Monday when the rain-delayed race was completed. But he said he basically agrees with Harvick.

"I think the chassis dynamometer inspections that NASCAR has done have shown that they've got more power than the other manufacturers," Roush said of Toyota. "Again, that's a reflection of how much money they spend and what NASCAR has approved for them to have in terms of configuration of the engines."

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said he disagrees with Harvick and Roush and that he has the test numbers to back him up. He said that NASCAR "doesn't deal in speculation" and pointed out that dynamometer tests on engines from all the manufacturers that run in the sport have consistently shown no significant difference in horsepower.

"We take 'em home and dyno 'em. We have the results," Pemberton said. "There is nothing that shows us that anybody has got anybody by a significant advantage. And I think they might have been referring to Truck and Nationwide series more than the Cup Series."

Yet when asked specifically if the power difference he suspects translates over to the Cup side, Harvick replied: "Absolutely. They have the same power advantage over there that they have in the Nationwide garage. It just doesn't show up as much because there are more good teams that are able to overcome that. But right now everybody is trying to play a little catch-up on the power side of it, to get to where they need to be. Those engine packages are all brand-new, so right now it's not good for anybody in the garage unless you have Toyota on your car."

Roush has long sounded the alarm over Toyota entering the Cup Series, which the manufacturer did in 2007 with very limited success. This year, however, the addition of Joe Gibbs Racing to the Toyota stable has produced immediate and much-improved results from a year ago.

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Tony Stewart won the first two Nationwide Series races in a Toyota. His JGR and Toyota teammate, Kyle Busch, heads is the points leader in two of NASCAR's three top series (he's second in the Nationwide standings). And although they have yet to win a Cup race, Stewart and Busch finished third and fourth, respectively, in the season-opening Daytona 500. Busch matched that finish in the Auto Club 500, and Busch sits on the pole for this Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400 at LVMS (read more).

Roush said it is evident that Toyota is changing the landscape of NASCAR, and he long ago warned that it may just change it forever.

"I wouldn't say they've got an unfair advantage. They've spent maybe more money and spent it in areas that other teams haven't, and with that they've gotten the result that you might get from working harder and expending more resources," Roush said. "There is a limit to what you can reasonably afford to spend, given the traditional of sponsorship and the traditional level of support that comes from the manufacturers, and the traditional level of support that comes from the decal sponsors on the car.

"If Toyota is upsetting that, if they're spending more money, which I'm given to believe they are, then they've got an advantage. But it's not unfair, because if we wanted to spend or could spend that much money, we could do the same thing."

The problem is, Roush implied, that no one can match Toyota dollar for dollar over the long haul.

"They've got a history of spending their money wisely, and in quantities that outspend or outstrip the other manufacturers," Roush said. "And I've got every reason to believe they'll do it here. It's been their practice to do that in Formula One and open-wheel racing."

Harvick said that he believes the Richard Childress Racing teams that compete at the Cup level, which includes not only his No. 29 Chevy but the No. 31 Chevy of driver Jeff Burton and the No. 07 of Clint Bowyer, will remain competitive because they are smart about how they go about their business. But he admitted that they will all have to be careful not to push their engines too hard, trying to keep up with the power he believes Toyota is generating.

Fast Facts

What	UAW-Dodge 400
When	3:30 p.m. ET Sunday
TV	FOX
Radio	PRN / Sirius Ch. 128

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"I feel like we're very good at racing within our parameters, knowing our means and how far we can push things. That's always been something that RCR has been very good at," Harvick said. "I don't think we're going to get caught up in trying too hard to win one race here or there. We're going to go out and race and try to put ourselves in position to win, but we're not going to put ourselves in jeopardy of throwing away a whole race weekend just to try to win one race."

It was pointed out to Harvick that the current Cup standings include five Chevrolets, three Dodges, two Fords and two Toyotas among the top 12.

"Parity is good," he said. "You know, it's just all the other makes seem to be relatively close -- and then you have the other brand that has really only two or three good race teams throughout all their stuff. I think it really showed how much they were lacking a really experienced race team when they put their stuff in the Gibbs cars."

Roush was asked if he thought there was anything NASCAR could or should do to ensure that the playing field is level.

"That's the stuff of editorials. Knock yourself out," he replied.

Well, Pemberton said that nothing is going to be done right now -- because he insisted that the charges of Toyota having significantly more engine muscle than everyone else simply are not true, adding that multiple tests have been performed by Sprint Cup Series director John Darby and his staff.

"John and all his guys have evaluated all that, and there is not anything that we've seen that points to an advantage by anybody," Pemberton said. "Everybody has their opinion. But everybody has the same opportunity with parts and pieces in all three garage areas."