The man who led the way in bringing Toyota to NASCAR is leaving his job.
Lee White, president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development, said in a release from Toyota that he plans to step down from his daily duties and will vacate the position of president and general manager of TRD, effective immediately.
“I have been planning and working toward retirement at the end of this race season in December,” he said in the release. “I have been offered and accepted an opportunity to perform a reduced amount of duties from my home office. This generous arrangement afforded to us by the company will allow me to attend to personal family priorities.”
He cited family health-care needs as the reason for his sudden move.
Driver-turned-analyst Darrell Waltrip said the recent engine failures experienced by Toyota’s Sprint Cup teams shouldn’t have an affect on the legacy of White, who started from scratch and helped build a winning engine when Toyota decided to compete in NASCAR.
“Regardless of who’s in charge, as a driver or owner, I don’t want an engine program that’s not cutting-edge,” Waltrip said. “Toyota, under Lee White, has been cutting-edge and has been getting great results.
“However, they’ve had failures to go along with those results. That’s the downside to what they’ve been doing.”
At Dover, Matt Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr. both were running up front, but were sidelined by engine failure. At Charlotte, N.C., Kyle Busch blew the engine in his No. 18 Toyota.
TV change: The Fox portion of the Sprint Cup broadcast season ended with Sunday's FedEx 400 at Dover International Speedway, and now TNT takes over for the next six races before ESPN/ABC picks up at Indianapolis and finishes the season.
For its part of the season, Fox’s ratings averaged 4.5, up 7 percent from last year, in large part because of strong numbers from the season-opening Daytona 500.
TNT returns with its regular broadcast lineup that features analysts Kyle Petty, Wally Dallenbach and Larry McReynolds and play-by-play announcer Adam Alexander. Ralph Sheheen, Marty Snider, Matt Yocum and Chris Neville will report from pit road.
WOO dreaming: Shane Clanton of Zebulon is at Tony Stewart's Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, this weekend defending his victory last year in the Dream, the richest dirt Late Model race in America.
Clanton heads into the weekend, which features 31 races over 567 laps, with $304,575 in posted awards, including $100,000 to the winner of the finale.
Clanton has momentum on his side, having won the most recent World of Outlaws race, June 1 at Stateline Speedway in Busti, N.Y. It was his fourth WOO win of the season, tying him with defending series champion Darrell Lanigan.
Clanton, the son of the late dirt racer Billy Clanton, is one of five drivers who have won both the Dream and the World 100 at Eldora.
Etc.: Cecil Wilson, 77, who worked for 42 years for the Wood Brothers race team died June 4 after battling cancer. … Dorothy Earles Campbell, the daughter of Martinsville Speedway founder Clay Earles and the mother of the track's current president Clay Campbell, died May 31. Mrs. Campbell, 81, was the track's treasurer for more than 50 years and was well-known to fans from her work in the track's ticket office. She retired in 2004. … Robert S. Harrison, a crew member in the Nationwide Series, has been indefinitely suspended from NASCAR for violating the sanctioning body's substance-abuse policy. … Penske Racing has announced that A.J. Allmendinger, who has been driving for Penske in the IndyCar Series along with making selected starts for Phoenix Racing in the Sprint Cup Series, will drive Penske's No. 22 Ford in the upcoming Nationwide Series road-course races at Road American and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
