TOKYO: From the start of 2019, the Toyota Supra will be looking to prove its mettle out on the track.

The Japanese iconic sports car in race form will debut at the American NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) race in Daytona on Feb 16, 2019.

“When you talk Toyota and cool cars, Supra is the first thing that comes to mind for many auto enthusiasts. The Supra’s return in production form is huge news, but now we’re also going to see this iconic sports car return to American motorsport,” said Toyota Division Marketing group vice president Ed Laukes

Toyota worked with its subsidiaries, TRD, U.S.A. (Toyota Racing Development) in Costa Mesa, California, and Calty Design Research, Inc. (Calty) in Newport Beach, California, to develop a Supra for NASCAR competition.

The two teams applied key learnings from their prior collaborative efforts in NASCAR, which included the 2018 Toyota Camry which clinched the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship.

To build the Supra for NASCAR, TRD and Calty scaled the car to fit within NASCAR’s specifications for race vehicle entries into the NXS.

The 2019 season marks the first year Toyota will field a different model in all three of NASCAR’s national series – Camry at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) level, Supra in the NXS, and Tundra in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS).

Supra previously raced in both America and Japan, where it was a dominant force in Super GT competition and a contender in the IMSA Camel GT Series in the 1980s. It also made two appearances in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in the 1990s.

Keywords