All News Brian Vickers Carl Edwards David Ragan David Reutimann Kyle Busch Marcos Ambrose Matt Kenseth Michael Waltrip Scott Speed

Engine problems had different causes:

March 3, 2009 at 12:00 AM

  • Engine problems had different causes: The president of Toyota Racing Development says the engine failures incurred by the three Roush Fenway Racing teams during Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway were unrelated to the problems five Toyota teams experienced on Saturday. “Not in any way related,” Lee White said on Monday. “We’re going to take 100% responsibility for maybe not having all of our ducks in a row with durability testing when we got to the racetrack to be ready for the decisions the teams put the engines through to get ready for qualifying.” Four teams supplied engines by TRD — #00-David Reutimann and #47-Marcos Ambrose of Michael Waltrip Racing and #83-Brian Vickers and #82-Scott Speed of Red Bull Racing — had to switch engines and start at the rear of the field. Pole-sitter and eventual race winner #18-Kyle Busch also started at the back of the field after switching engines, but his was built by Joe Gibbs Racing. White said all seven teams supplied engines by TRD likely will go to Atlanta this week with the same new generation engine but with the conservative package — a thicker lubricant and small mechanical change that determines how much oil stays around the camshaft — that reduced horsepower by three to four at Vegas. He blamed the Toyota failures on teams trying to get more horsepower out of the engine for qualifying and practice. Instead of returning to Charlotte, N.C., on Monday he flew to TRD headquarters in California to make sure the issue wasn’t a factor moving forward.
    Roush Fenway co-owner Jack Roush on Sunday speculated that the new tire Goodyear introduced led to blown engines by #17-Matt Kenseth, #6-David Ragan and #99-Carl Edwards. Doug Yates, who runs the Roush Yates engine program, wanted to wait until the engines were fully examined before commenting. “I think we misjudged how fast this tire was going to be, and the engine turned more,” he said. “It’s the same spec on the engine that we had all of last year. It wasn’t something new or experimental. I had great confidence in it.” White said he is comfortable moving forward after Sunday in which three Toyotas finished in the top eight — including two with the more conservative TRD engine — and eight were in the top 22.(ESPN.com)(3-3-2009)