But before it was in full swing, we spent some time with two members of the Toyota Racing program. Andy Graves heads Toyota Racing Development’s US Racing efforts while Clint Bowyer is the driver of the “5-Hour Energy” number 15 Toyota Camry for Michael Waltrip Racing.
Andy Graves
Andy Graves is TRD’s group Vice President and Technical Director. We had a chance to catch up with him just prior to the qualifying races to determine starting positions in the Daytona 500 and to ask him about the 2015 Toyota Camry Sprint Cup car.
LLN: What sort of effort went into making the new 2015 Toyota Sprint Cup Camry?
“One of the biggest goals of the new Gen-six cars was that using the design parameters that the manufacturers have agreed upon with NASCAR, was to make sure our brand identity was caught in the design of the car. We don’t want to give away performance, and we don’t want to have to alter the character of the car’s styling to achieve performance. Those design parameters go to CALTY (Toyota’s Newport Beach, California design studio) who goes over it, and may alter, or modify our designs based on requests from us. For instance, we could ask them to modify it for engine or brake cooling or for maybe what we know is a new rule change by NASCAR. Once they perform such tweaks to our designs they will do a final design and we approve it, and then build the first set of prototype parts from that.”
“While those are being made, we will do CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) studies on the designs to get initial ideas on what the performance metrics will be and to see the flow characteristics. I would say the greenhouse shape is the same basic shape for all manufacturers, it’s just trading steel for glass on the window shapes.”
LLN: How do the cars from all the manufacturers differ between each other?
“The greenhouse is a finite design as dictated by NASCAR, and we’re not worried about the airflow around it. We’re primarily concerned about the nose and the hood area and looking at that flow. We start with those simulations, with usually 30 to 45 days to digest the results, and by that time we usually have the prototype parts and then we head to the wind tunnel. We’ll get some initial look at performance numbers, and based on reports, we can change things slightly, as a result of the wind tunnel tests.”
“From there we go back to CALTY and ask them to modify certain areas of the car in order to hit our performance metrics. Obviously with NASCAR, there are design parameters, but we also have downforce and drag numbers we have to hit. There is a maximum downforce and a minimum drag number that we can’t get outside of.”
LLN: Aren’t the front-end parameters pretty rigid in the sense that there is a basic shape that needs to be met?
“The design of the front of the car is pretty open (to interpretation). There are some parts, like the bottom inch and a half that is locked in, and then almost an inch up the wheel wells. Other than that, it’s pretty well open on the front of the cars. There is a lot you can do there. The Chevrolet, the Ford and our new Camry, you’ll see the front ends are so different, yet the numbers from the wind tunnel are so close because everyone tries to hit the design parameters. So we go back and forth several times with CALTY to the point where we know we can pass the NASCAR criteria and we’re happy with the performance of the vehicle. The 2015 Camry nose is actually version four, the fourth stage of what we started with.”
“When a body gets approved, we know that all the bodies from the manufacturers are pretty close to being equal. What the teams try to get away with, that is up to them…”
“We will always try to capture the car as close to a Camry as possible, almost making too good a car and then dial it back if we have to. It’s been a great project, it looks awesome and we’re really happy with it and really happy with the performance, as well.”
Clint Bowyer
Starting to race on two-wheels at the age of five before jumping to four, Clint Bowyer has been at it for thirty years, the last three with Toyota and Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR). Seemingly wired as though he mainlines “5-Hour Energy” drink, which also happens to be the primary sponsor of his NASCAR Sprint Cup number 15 Toyota Camry, he is quick with a quote that verges just on the other side of impropriety-but that’s okay. It makes for a more interesting story, don’t you know.
“I love the new Camry. Not only do I race them, I sell them at my dealership in Emporia, Kansas,” said Bowyer. “How it happened was kind of a dream come true…my brother and I both worked at this dealership as kids growing up, and knew the owner of it. I used to tell him, “If you ever think you want out someday, let me know. Because I would love to be in! It’s something I have a lot of fun with and a lot of passion for. I love interacting with people, and I love cars, and have always liked the aspect of working and being around a car dealership.”
LLN: When you win races do you sell more cars?
Boyer responded in the affirmative, but followed with “I haven’t won a race here in a while, so I better get off my ass…. “The thing with Toyota,” he continued, ” is you don’t have any gimmicks. They are a solid, safe, dependable and reliable car and always have been. So it is a pretty easy sale when you are talking about a Toyota. That’s a good sales pitch, isn’t it? They sell themselves! Is that a top-five blog?” he asks a reporter. “No?,” he asks incredulously. “Damn! I’ll go on, I’ll get better.”
LLN: What do you get from Toyota and what do you give them back?
“Well, that’s the neat thing. I was with Chevrolet before, and I think Toyota is, hands down, the best automobile maker I have been with, on and off the racetrack. The support we get with the TRD program allows the team to focus on lots of different things without necessarily worrying about their funding. TRD provides a lot of support, like the shaker rig, (for track emulation) the pull-down rig (to simulate suspension loads), a lot of support that the other manufacturers don’t necessarily provide for their teams. The whole TRD team in Salisbury, NC, provides a lot of resources that we use every single day for what you see on Sundays and it all comes out of that TRD shop there. “
“What we do for them? We win races for them so they can sell automobiles. That’s how it works, that’s how our world goes round and round. I’m getting better. Did you get the round and round part?”
LLN: Talk a little bit about your background, how you got here.
“I grew up racing motocross when I was about 16. How the whole car racing thing got going is laughable. I was working in a Goodyear Tire shop, and my boss and all the co-workers were working on this old Monte Carlo, a street stock piece of crap, to go up to Thunderhill Speedway, the local dirt track to battle it out on a Saturday night.”
“We got to going up there with a bunch of older guys, and I just fell in love with it. The comradery amongst the guys was amazing. We’d go to the junkyard, build this engine from junkyard parts, then go to the track, blow up, drive home all night, get home, go back to the junkyard at daylight, and rob Junkyard John of all the parts to get back to the next race to go again. It was a constant recycle of parts…the same thing over and over again. But looking back, it was some of the best times of my life. That’s how it all got going.”
He continued, “When I finally had my opportunity to drive a car and had some success, it was my mom and I, my dad owned a towing service. But my mom and I would go to the track and I started running a little bit better, and got my dad’s attention and when he started helping, business picked up and we started winning. And the rest is history.”
“Eventually a guy in Kansas City had an ARCA car, and gave me an opportunity to drive it in Nashville. And that won races and put me on the map. We went there, qualified well, led a lot of the race, and then a caution flag came out and we didn’t really have a pit crew, so that put a major dent in that night’s program. We ended up second but that was enough. NASCAR team owner Richard Childress happened to be watching that race and called me that next week, and I was in North Carolina pretty quick. So, one would call that luckier than hell. You can go ahead and blog that. It wasn’t like $500-million, but it was a good start at it!”
LLN: Was that all it took?
“Once you get the exposure you need a pretty good resume to stand on. The dirt racing, though, keeps you grounded and humble. I own two dirt racing teams and we’ve been down here racing for two weeks. A lot of people don’t realize that Speed Weeks isn’t just what you see here at Daytona, there’s asphalt racing every night over in New Smyrna Beach, there’s a tremendous amount of racing around here for these couple of weeks. The USAC guys are racing in Ocala on Friday. Those guys have got big balls. Large ones.”
LLN: What was the last movie you saw?
“I’m actually watching a very awful movie that John Goodman made in 1991… he was the King. (King Ralph). I don’t even know what in the hell it was. I was doing something for my Facebook page, and I looked up and was kinda dumbfounded by what I was seeing on the TV. Movies have come a long way….”
LLN: Other favorites in racing?
“John Force. He is my favorite character in all of motorsports. Without John Force, the NHRA would probably be done. It’s scary to think one guy could carry something that big, but I’m telling you, he does.”
Wrapping up our conversation, Bowyer was surprised by the severe drop in temperatures leading up to the Daytona 500. “My brother went across the street to get some cold weather gear for tonight’s festivities. He didn’t have much luck. The man says to him, “this is Florida, sir. We sell T-shirts.”
Words photos by Mark Elias. Additional photography courtesy of TRD.
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