NASCAR: Toyota reveals 2015 Camry

Toyota revealed the updated version of its "Gen-6" NASCAR Camry racecar for 2015 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday.

In keeping with the established Gen-6 pattern of cars designed to more closely resemble vehicles sold on the showroom floor than their predecessors, the 2015 NASCAR Camry shape aims to make that connection even more sharply.

"Definitely the 2015 Camry racecar has benefited from a cosmetic standpoint from the stance that the 2015 production Camry is perfect -- the front end, the aggressive, wide-mouth look is just perfect for this racecar," said Andy Graves, vice president of chassis engineering & Toyota NASCAR program manager, TRD USA. "Because of that, it really makes it look another level of detail closer to the production car. As soon as we saw the photos from Toyota and Calty (Design Group) of what the '15 production car was going to look like, we were ecstatic because we knew it was really going to look great on the racetrack."

"Obviously we need it to look like a 2015 Camry, but we're competition guys," said Dave Wilson, president and general manager, Toyota Racing Development, USA, said. "We need it to race well.

"Andy and Calty set about to stay within that box [the range of aerodynamic numbers determined by NASCAR, aimed at keeping a single manufacturer from gaining an advantage] but absolutely walk the tightrope in terms of making sure it had the most optimal characteristics aerodynamically, etc., so that we're not leaving anything on the table. And we felt like we achieved that and we believe that it's going to race just fine.

"But in the car business, you have to evolve the products in the showroom to remain competitive," he said.

Graves, a former NASCAR crew chief, said updates to the Camry had been on TRD's "radar screen" for two years.

"It's a balancing act ...we're trying to keep as much character as we can in the Gen-6 platform but also we want to try to eke out every bit of performance within the parameters that the OEM group has given ourselves and which we are working in. And NASCAR polices that," he said.

"We've looked at some CFD simulations to really make sure that we're trying to capture everything that we can, not just from the standpoint that the car will run good by itself, but also runs good in traffic. We've tried to understand that ...and tweak the design based on those parameters."

With NASCAR banning individual team testing beginning next season, Toyota officials and teams will be busy shaking down the new entry in the coming weeks. Wilson and Graves said tests are currently scheduled for Phoenix, Auto Club Speedway and Charlotte in the coming weeks.

Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing field Toyota entries for five Sprint Cup teams. That number will grow to six next season when JGR expands to four cars with Carl Edwards joining current drivers Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth. MWR's stable currently consists of drivers Clint Bowyer and Brian Vickers.

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