Banner day for Toyota

Toyota showed no signs of slowing after posting impressive times and speeds in preseason testing. Denny Hamlin, driving the No. 11 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, won his Gatorade Duel qualifying race at Daytona International Speedway. Dale Jarrett, in the No. 44 Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing, finished high enough in his duel race to qualify for the Daytona 500. And finally, Tony Stewart and Hamlin posted a 1-2 finish in their duel race and perhaps gave everyone a preview of how tough it's going to be to beat Toyota at Daytona.
Toyota, in its second year of Cup competition, has been surprisingly fast during testing at Daytona, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and California Speedway. The Joe Gibbs Racing drivers, Hamlin, Stewart and Kyle Busch, were expected to have top times. But Waltrip almost won the pole for the Daytona 500, finishing only second to Jimmie Johnson in qualifying.
Then Jarrett, without the comfort of a champion's provisional after Kurt Busch lost a motor in the first duel and had to use his provisional to qualify for the Daytona 500, raced his way into what will be his last Daytona 500.
As strong as Toyotas looked in the duels at Daytona, Hamlin said he is looking forward to races at California Speedway and Las Vegas.
“I'm actually a little more excited about the races to come -- the mile-and-a-half, two-mile racetracks -- California, Vegas, those race tracks," Hamlin said. "All the hard work that we did in the off-season, that's where it's going to show up, not necessarily here at Daytona. Here at Daytona you're going to see what hard work paid off in the engine room, both from Mark Cronquist and the engine guys at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) and TRD (Toyota Racing Development). That's what's going to show up at the race track this weekend. Everything we worked on in the off-season will show up the rest of the races throughout the season. We definitely know we have the engine thing heading in the right direction right now. We just got to make sure we've got the mechanical stuff working.”