Toyota facing even tougher season

When the season started at Daytona, two out of the seven Toyota Camrys entered for the whole year relied on rule benefits to have a guaranteed place on the starting grid for the first five races of the season.

However, with the current owner-points standings coming into effect from next weekend, six Toyota drivers will have to secure their place on the grid based on their qualifying speed, making Toyota's debut season in the Nextel Cup even tougher than it has been so far.

Dave Blaney was the only Toyota driver who had his start guaranteed until last weekend based on his status in last year's owner-points standings.

However, his car is now 37th in the points, while Bill Davis Racing teammate Jeremy Mayfield's Camry is 47th, having qualified only once this year, last weekend at Bristol, where he finished down in 34th.

Dale Jarrett, driver of the No. 44 UPS Toyota, has enjoyed the benefit of the past champion's provisional rule, which allows him to automatically get the last place on the starting grid up to six times this year.

Jarrett has used the rule four times, meaning he is the only Toyota driver who still has his start guaranteed for the coming race at Martinsville and also for Texas in three weeks' time.

The 1999 Cup champion was in the top-35 in the owner-points last week, but lies now in 39th after crashing out at Bristol. Jarrett made contact with the wall after he was tapped form behind in the opening laps by former champion Matt Kenseth.

"I was trying to pass Kyle Petty and get in under him and then Matt Kenseth just turned me going into the corner," Jarrett said after the race.

"This is not the first time that he's done something like this. Everybody has this great vision that Matt Kenseth is this nice guy on the race track, he is a nice guy away from the track, but he's a rough driver on the race track when he doesn't have to be. We'll have a discussion."

Jarrett's misfortunes only add to a terrible Cup debut season for Michael Waltrip Racing so far. Waltrip has only qualified for Daytona this year and Jarrett was the only driver from the team able to make the race at Bristol, as rookie teammate David Reutimann also failed to qualify.

Team Red Bull, also in their debut season in the Nextel Cup, have failed to put their cars in the top 35 in the owner-points, having only made the field in three races, all of them with Brian Vickers and once with rookie AJ Allmendinger, who took his first Cup start at Bristol.

Despite Vickers getting two respectable finishes with a 10th place at California and a 15th at Bristol, his car is 38th in the standings.

The current situation means that Toyota cars will probably continue to fail in their attempts to make the field for coming races.

Thirty-five cars which don't include any Toyotas will start the race at Martinsville next weekend, while the Camry drivers will have to fight between themselves and additional entries to get one of the remaining places on the starting grid.