Thrilling week in Daytona Beach so far! An incredible day of meeting Toyota NASCAR drivers, crew chiefs and even the president of TRD USA, the overall lead in the Toyota Racing effort in American events. Meeting the 2015 Camry racer up close then seeing it in what felt like an HD action movie of the race Duels later?

YES!

So much fun to see the Daytona Speedweek leadup to the Daytona 500 tomorrow, Sunday the 22nd of February. The car-guy part of NASCAR culture makes tech and equipment off-track and in the pits every bit as serious as a wild spin-out on the track. These crew-members are everywhere in the leadup to the races, which is dubbed COLD in pitlane parlance. HOT is any time there are cars on the track. Our passes from Toyota have COLD in bold letters. And it was!  A blustery day to be sure, with mid-30s temps a rarity for Daytona Beach.

Overall, the pitlane spirit is infectious, and you can easily imagine most of the drivers being just ‘normal dudes.’ But this series is a machine!

2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Camry

The Camry NASCAR’s official name?  2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Camry

What the name lacks in pizazz, the spec sheet and exhaust roar deliver in brutal figures. 850 horsepower via a screaming 5.7-liter V8 engine, and updated design with all-new aerodynamics setup for the CALTY-penned racecar.

The design is an incredibly accurate version of the real-life 2015 Camry SE and XSE nose, and went through four rounds of aero tweaks once the final series-wide design mandates were frozen. We learned the strictest of those are the lower nose splitter and the inner fender dimensions, which are near-identical for all NASCAR racers.

These shapes are not just approved once and sent racing, either. Elaborate laser and physical measurement systems check every car before DAYTONA with a nose grater like this alloy cheese-grater mask below.

2015 Toyota Camry NASCAR

Matt Kenseth #20 Dollar General