Fined 100 driver and owner points before the start of the season.... 250k total fines...
loss of his crewchief and team director indefinately.

Welcome to NASCAR, Toyota.

Yep, SPEED showed the whole press conference.

Well Reutimann's car is his own car since he's the team owner, so it's not really buying into the race.

But yes, Waltrip should give up racing soon. He was never ever good to begin with... just got lucky a few times in a couple restrictor plate races.

He has his own team now so I wouldn't be surprised within a couple years of him putting some rookie into that #55 car and just concentrate on running the team.

Nothing will shut DW up. They were talking about it during practice and he kept making it sound like it was accidental or Mikey had no clue about it (this was prior to the penalty being announced)

It looks like Mikey found someone to blame. Jayski is reporting that David Hyder will be fired. Now DW can talk about how Mikey just hired the wrong people or something lame to cover up the cheating.

oh, and you have to love this:

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition, was emphatic this [the #55 infraction and penalty] was a team issue and not a Toyota issue. While embarrassed over the incident, Toyota officials insisted they would maintain a relationship with MWR. "This is not the way you want to enter NASCAR's Nextel Cup Series by any means," said Jim Aust, the president and CEO of Toyota Racing Development. "For this to happen to him is extremely disappointing and extremely disappointing to Toyota. ... He has certainly apologized to just about anybody that would be associated with his organization. He's beside himself with what's happened." Toyota isn't resting on an [Waltrip] apology. Company officials are expected to send a letter out to all Toyota teams next week stating Waltrip's organization has used two of the company's three strikes. The next team that crosses the line will face the loss of the manufacturer's support. Lee White, the senior vice president for TRD, said TRD worked with NASCAR throughout the process. "I can honestly tell you from an ethics standpoint and integrity, along with character and honesty, those things are paramount in our company," he said. "We hold ourselves to a high standard and we hold our teams to high standards. We hope we've picked the right ones."(ESPN.com)
AND: Jim Aust, vice president or Toyota Racing Development, was asked if this was his worst nightmare. "I would say that's pretty close to accurate," Aust said. "This is a week we had looked forward to for many years. To begin this way certainly takes some of the limelight and happiness out of it." It also doesn't help the Toyota guys win over some NASCAR followers who didn't want them here in the first place. That marketing campaign just got a lot tougher.(ESPN.com)(2-14-2007)


Good job Waltrip.... make all the Toyota teams suffer for your stupidness. So basicly if one of those teams makes a mistake, Toyota will leave them high and dry.  Well, Toyota wanted to make an impact upon entering NASCAR. Looks like they have it.

Gee.... why doesn't he tell us what he really thinks?

I saw n interesting article on this over at FoxSports

As the season kicked off in Daytona two weeks ago, talk of change was all the rage.

Between the Car of Tomorrow, Toyota's entry into NASCAR, Juan Pablo Montoya and the Chase/points system alterations, changes commanded the bulk of the media's attention.

Toss in the ever-changing Teresa vs. Dale Earnhardt Jr. power struggle for control of DEI and you had a soap opera that could almost distract attention from those other stories brewing in Florida at the time: the diaper-wearing Astronaut Gone Wild and the tragic demise of Anna Nicole Smith.

But all it took was one messy manifold found during Daytona 500 pre-race inspection for the focus to return to a theme that has remained unchanged since racing began — cheating.

"We are committed to trying to stop all the games that are being played," said Jim Hunter, NASCAR VP of communications. "We're committed to maintaining the integrity of the garage area and we're going to do whatever it takes to do that."

Whatever it takes, that is, unless "maintaining the integrity of the garage area" involves parking Michael Waltrip.

Now, it may take longer to identify the mysterious substance found in Waltrip's fuel system than it will to determine the paternity of Anna Nicole's baby, but the bigger mystery is this: Why was Waltrip allowed to race? How did the early rumblings of a four- to six-week suspension for Waltrip somehow devolve into a $100,000 fine, 100 points and a vacation for crew chief David Hyder and VP of competition Bobby Kennedy?

"It was a pass for NAPA, it was a pass for Toyota — and about 10 to 15 percent pass for Mikey," said a source close to the situation. "If the sponsor was Burger King and the driver was David Reutimann, he'd be sitting at home."

So what gives?

Let's begin by considering Waltrip's sponsor, NAPA. The long-time NASCAR sponsor was forced to buy its way into last year's Coca-Cola 600 and also missed Richmond — the regular-season finale — as well as the Brickyard, the second biggest race of the year. Can you imagine NAPA's motorsports account manager now having to turn around and explain missing this year's Daytona 500 to the people cutting the checks? In this economy, NASCAR can't afford to upset long-time benefactors like NAPA.

Then consider Toyota's possible influence. With financial woes facing Detroit, it would not be out of the realm of possibility for us to see Toyota as the dominant automaker competing in NASCAR, and a lot sooner than later. Try these scenarios on for size: Daimler sells Chrysler to General Motors, and Toyota purchases GM. In that situation, just how long do you think Ford, a company that went billions of dollars in the hole last year, would be able to race against an organization that fills 80 percent of the NASCAR Nextel Cup garage?

Honor is a mainstay of Japanese society. However dishonorable it was for Waltrip's team to cheat, it would have been as much of an embarrassment for Toyota not to have at least one or two cars that qualified on time, as opposed to a spot in the race due to a champion's provisional or because his owner finished in the top 35 in points. Without Waltrip in the race, Toyota would have qualified only three of eight drivers in the 500 field. Not exactly the coming-out party Toyota would have wished for.

But it's plenty good reason for NASCAR to tiptoe around the topic.

It was an understatement to say NASCAR VP of competition Robin Pemberton was a tad testy when I asked whether NASCAR was setting a precedent at this time because cheating was out of control ... or if parity needed to be established in the garage before Toyota hit its stride.

"You shouldn't have asked that question," Pemberton replied.

Why not?

Pemberton's terse response was that Waltrip's infraction was "a team issue" and had "nothing to do with the manufacturer whatsoever."

Hey, I wasn't implying that Toyota was responsible for whatever substance Waltrip's men used to tweak the tank. My point was that with Toyota's resources, innovations would now be occurring at a dizzying pace. NASCAR currently doesn't even have enough engineers on its staff to keep up with its own teams, let alone new teams that have access to sophisticated Formula One-style technologies.

"This is a highly competitive field this year, and there was just one team that wasn't guaranteed to get in the race," Pemberton added. "I think that they crossed the line to try to assure them a starting spot in the Daytona 500. That's all there is to it."

But is it? If Robbie Reiser had juiced Matt Kenseth's fuel would the same love have been offered to DeWalt? What about Robby Gordon and Jim Beam? Or Morgan Shepherd's Victory in Jesus car? Would NASCAR have us believe that Toyota has more pull around the garage than the big guy upstairs?

Let's hope not.

If you sit around and talk racin' with anyone who knows the game, you're sure to hear legendary tales of light cars, larger restrictor plates and nitrous oxide under the hood. And in the past, that kind of talk didn't hurt NASCAR, which always had lived by the credo that any news is better than no news at all.

But if NASCAR doesn't wise up soon and shut down this production of Sponsors Gone Wild, there ain't gonna be a diaper big enough to contain the mess.



I think Toyota's first entry into NASCAR and Waltrip being their flagship driver was the reason why he wasn't sent home.

without a doubt, he got a free pass, had alot to do with how Mikey always talks about how Nascar is so great.....he is in the broadcast booth for the Truck race and numerous other appearances like Trackside....he is the face of Nascar in alot of ways.......so they weren't going to park him.

again, it ain't right, but that's the way it is.