Toyota Racing Reveals the NASCAR Supra!

[greaseman]

http://www.espn.com/jayski/nxs/2018/story/_/id/23631542/toyota-plans-run-supra-xfinity-2019


Not necessarily GR, but I guess the Camry isn't the race car of choice in America anymore.

Toyota seem awfully proud of a car that supposedly will be a disappointment. Maybe there's still hope.

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[BrettS]

NASCAR Supra has been announced! Here's the official press release

July 05, 2018

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (July 5, 2018) – Toyota Supra is back at the track! Beginning in 2019, the globally-recognized iconic sports car will prove its championship mettle in the hotly contested NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS). Supra will make its on-track debut in the NXS race at Daytona on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019.

“When you talk Toyota and cool cars, Supra is the first thing that comes to mind for many auto enthusiasts,” said Ed Laukes, group vice president of Toyota Division Marketing. “Supra’s return in production form is huge news, but now we’re also going to see this iconic sports car return to American motorsport. From a marketing perspective, it’s important to have a race car that evokes the dynamism and character of its showroom counterpart. We’re confident we’ve accomplished that with Supra, and we hope racing fans the world over will proudly cheer its success on track.”

Toyota worked with its subsidiaries, TRD, U.S.A. (Toyota Racing Development) in Costa Mesa, California, and Calty Design Research, Inc. (Calty) in Newport Beach, California, to develop a Supra for NASCAR competition. The two teams applied key learnings from their prior collaborative efforts in NASCAR, which included the 2018 Toyota Camry that clinched the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship.

To build the Supra for NASCAR, TRD and Calty scaled Supra to fit within NASCAR’s specifications for race vehicle entries in the NXS.

“We’ve had tremendous success working with Calty to develop race cars that match the look, feel and excitement of their showroom counterparts,” said David Wilson, president of TRD. “We’re confident Calty and TRD have developed another race car, Supra, that is capable of winning races and championships. For Supra to be racing in NASCAR just speaks to how important this vehicle is to us, and that we believe Supra can be a bona fide championship winner.”

Toyota has fielded Camry in NXS competition since 2007, tallying four manufacturer championships while Camry has earned two driver championships and 143 wins. The 2019 season marks the first year Toyota will field a different model in all three of NASCAR’s national series – Camry at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) level, Supra in the NXS, and Tundra in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS).

Supra previously raced in both America and Japan, where it was a dominant force in Super GT competition and a contender in the IMSA Camel GT Series in the 1980s. It also made two appearances in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in the 1990s.

TRD and Calty previously worked together to design:

* 2013: Sixth-generation Camry for MENCS

* 2014: Tundra for NCWTS

* 2015: Seventh-generation Camry for NXS

* 2016: Eighth-generation Camry for MENCS

* 2017: Eighth-generation Camry for NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series

Calty has worked hand-in-hand with TRD, Toyota’s North American race engineer arm, to ensure consistency between production models and on-track Toyota race cars, while also improving on-track performance with each new build. The groups began work on the NASCAR Supra in 2017.

“When Ed (Laukes) told me they were bringing Supra back, I almost didn’t believe him. I figured he was messing with me, but Toyota did it and this is a big deal for the NASCAR Xfinity Series,” said Kyle Busch, who won the 2009 NXS championship in Camry. “Supra is an iconic cool car, and to have it racing in NASCAR to highlight Supra’s return speaks to how important this is. I’m hoping to be the first guy to get Supra to victory lane, but I’m sure there’s a few other Toyota drivers thinking the same thing.”

Reflecting Toyota’s commitment to motorsports in America, the manufacturer now showcases six models across eight series in America. Toyota Racing Development’s lineup includes: Camry, Supra, and Tundra in the NASCAR national series; Camry in the NHRA Funny Car competition; Camry in the ARCA Racing Series and regional touring series; 86 and Corolla Hatchback in Formula Drift; as well as engines for dirt midget racing and other series.

Toyota Motor North America will release more information about Supra in the future.

 

[Spilner]

Hmmmmm

 

[Supraman]

^ hmm....link to the upcoming stream?

 

[Supra93]

^ hmm....link to the upcoming stream?

 

[Captain_Kirk]

Here is the Youtube link for those having trouble with livestream.

 

[Supra93]

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/h...yota-supra-lines-up-with-the-production-model

How the NASCAR Xfinity Series Toyota Supra Lines Up with the Production Model
A primer on the race car’s body parts that the rules let makers design.

Call it fortuitous that NASCAR’s rules are shifting back toward visually linking race cars to their streetgoing counterparts just as Toyota is gearing up to relaunch its Supra in the United States. The Toyota sports car needs a big publicity push—despite a 1993 model’s starring role in the Fast and Furious movie franchise, there’s no getting around the Supra’s 20-year absence from U.S. dealerships. Next year’s NASCAR Xfinity Series should help, then. Toyota has chosen to field its racer in Supra makeup, and recent rule changes mean the race cars from every manufacturer will bear a closer resemblance to their roadgoing inspirations.

NASCAR also abandoned its requirement of North American assembly for the nameplates racing in all of its series, opening the door for Toyota to model its Xfinity racer off its newest sports coupe. The rules so far allow factory racing divisions to manipulate only the front graphics (the “face” above the bumper cutline), hoods, front fenders, rear quarter-window outlines, and tails. Since we’ve all yet to see the Supra in its final, salable form, it’s worth going over how Toyota’s 2019 Xfinity car translates visually to the production car, and vice versa. If it fares well in the Xfinity Series, it seems possible that the Supra could replace the Camry in the Monster Energy Cup races, too.

Before we get into details, understand that, regardless of make and model, NASCAR rules stipulate a single blocky profile, a silhouette that must fit inside one standard template. Although the rules stop short of requiring identical bodies, they do maintain common dimensional maximums and basic proportions. Toyota noted that messing with the cars’ styling is allowed—to a point. Every car must stay within allowable drag and downforce parameters. The good news, both for manufacturers and fans, is that these parameters allow for a good deal more visual differentiation than they did previously, while keeping the cars’ performance relatively equal.

For the Supra, Toyota has taken the headlight shapes and core nose design from the production car and applied it to the Xfinity racer’s bodywork. The designers—based in Toyota’s Calty design center, the same folks who worked on the street-legal Supra—did their best to apply the car’s deep-draw, curvy face to the upright NASCAR-legal body. Although we haven’t seen the final production Supra, we’re told it’ll look a lot like the FT-1 concept that Toyota debuted at the 2014 Detroit auto show (and the more recent GR Supra Racing concept), and sure enough, the Xfinity car’s face looks similar. Although the headlights are merely graphic stickers, they’re set into sculptural nacelles and flow into the bulging fenders, which Toyota also has massaged to its liking within the parameters of the rules. Below the Xfinity Supra’s bumper cutline, Toyota’s designers threw on a trio of stickers that mimic intakes.

Moving from the front of the Xfinity Supra to the rear, the eye traces along a distinct V-shaped hood bulge that carries off the Toyota badge in the nose. At least in the sponsor-free red, white, and black livery of Toyota’s prototype, there are hints of the Supra née FT-1 concept’s front and rear fender shapes (peer closely at that black-colored stripe running just above the rocker panel and kicking up over the rear wheel). Teams are allowed to define the rear quarter-window shape using stickers to selectively cover parts of the window, and Toyota went with a pointy, triangular shape said to reflect the production Supra’s.

Visually, the Xfinity Supra’s tail resembles that of the actual Supra only in the shape of its taillights (more stickers) and diffuser element, with two large, round exhaust outlets and a central brake-light/backup-light combo (also stickers, only bigger ones). Teams are allowed to manipulate the styling of their cars’ tails only between the edges, meaning the hard creases defining the trailing edge of each rear quarter-panel.

So there you have it: The Xfinity Supra looks mostly like a Supra, and it’s neat that it’ll be going head to head with racers designed to resemble Ford’s Mustang and Chevrolet’s Camaro (both also rear-drive coupes in real life). It’s also worth celebrating NASCAR’s rule changes, which attempt to bring its race cars into line (at least visually) with their roadgoing counterparts, even if their big pushrod V-8s might not bear any resemblance to the turbocharged four-cylinder, six-cylinder, and more modern V-8s offered between the Supra, Mustang, and Camaro (although, to be fair, that last model still offers a pushrod V-8). The question of whether the NASCAR exposure will bump up public recognition of the Supra name will have to wait to be answered until next year, after the 2019 season kicks off at Daytona in February.

 

[BrettS]

So the supra logo is pretty close to what the mk4 was

 

[MA617M]

lölöl that's abysmal
I wonder if that's the new logo though?

 

[greaseman]

I don't know much about NASCAR, can someone explain the reason the body looks so different from the production model?

 

[Modal170]

Can someone explain how is Nascar's engine specs requirement?

Cause that looks to be the same hood, potentially as the mules and if so, should hold the same engine, theoretically of course.

 

[MA617M]

nascar is a shell over a space frame tube. all cars are pretty much the same (engines are all carby V8?) but with different liveries to make them look like different cars.

IE this is a sticker pack to look like the A90

 

[MA617M]

Can someone explain how is Nascar's engine specs requirement?

Cause that looks to be the same hood, potentially as the mules and if so, should hold the same engine, theoretically of course.

the only thing in common with the road car will be the name

 

[Villa Jonny]

Gross.

 

[supraboi]

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