DAYTONA BEACH -- Stock car history is being made this weekend during the ARCA test at Daytona International Speedway.
Josh Wise, who was just crowned USAC's sprint car national champion, is testing a full-bodied Toyota over the 2.5-mile tri-oval course.
The No. 22 Eddie Sharp Racing Camry is the first Japanese-based race car to turn laps at Daytona in an American stock car series. The NASCAR Nextel Cup Toyotas will test here next month.
Wise, who saw Daytona for the first time Friday, has not absorbed the historical significance of his testing efforts.
"I have so much on my mind that I'm just thinking about keeping it nice and smooth around there," said the 23-year-old driver from Riverside, Calif. "Yeah, this is pretty cool, but I don't ever think about things like that."
The No. 22 is a research and development team for Michael Waltrip Racing, which will field three Toyotas in 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series competition.
The ARCA Re/Max Series and NASCAR Nextel Cup Series run virtually identical equipment. The data numbers recorded here will be taken back to Waltrip Racing and crunched by a slew of engineers.
"This is very cool," said Rick Lantz, Toyota's Busch Series program manager. "This is something we've been looking forward to since the start of the program -- getting a car on the track at Daytona and getting to see how well it performs."
ARCA considers this a rare honor to debut a new manufacturer and its stock car. Generally, car manufacturers like to showcase a new entry in the Daytona 500 and Budweiser Shootout.
The ARCA 200 will be staged Feb. 10 as a prelude to the Shootout at Daytona.
"We give a new manufacturer the option to wait to make that body style legal for ARCA right out of the box," ARCA vice president of competition Joe Wells said.
"The people at Toyota allowed us to come right out of the box with the Camry, which we feel really good about. They are working with our people to make sure they get what they need. It's a very promising start to what we think is a great future."
Wise is the lone Toyota driver for this ARCA test, which concludes today.
Wells and Lantz expect only a handful of the Camrys for the ARCA 200, scheduled Feb. 10. Expect those Toyotas to be fast and competitive.
The Toyota camp is not sandbagging this test session. Wise topped Friday's speed chart and was quickest again Saturday. His best lap Saturday was 181.925 mph.
"We have a heck of a car," Wise said. "You could put any driver here in it and they could go faster than what I did.
"There's a lot of hard work these guys have put into it, and all that hard work is showing at this test."
"Based on what they (Toyota) are throwing at it, I'm not really surprised," Wells said. "I figured they would be very close to the top. They have had a lot of time to prepare and they have done a lot of homework."
The No. 22 team has one garage bay for the car and another for support equipment, plus a technology table with a half dozen laptop computers.
Wise said he realizes this isn't just another test session with just any old stock car.
"The car is getting a lot of looks," he said. "It's pretty neat, the whole deal."
SATURDAY
ARCA Re/Max
TEST SPEEDS
1. Josh Wise, Toyota, 181.925
2. David Green, Chevy, 181.167
3. Erin Crocker, Dodge, 180.992
4. Chase Pistone, Dodge, 180.774
5. Bobby Gerhart, Chevy, 180.603
6. Phillip McGilton, Chevy, 180.361
7. Michael McDowell, Dodge, 180.122
8. A.J. Henriksen, Chevy, 180.119
9. Bryan Silas, Ford, 179.867
10. Keven Wood, Ford, 179.863