Toyota Takeover?

As Toyota is poised to enter Nascar's Nextel Cup series this season, Ford team owner, Jack Roush is gearing up with the combative rhetoric.

Roush has been the loudest critic of Nascar's decision to allow the Japanese automaker to enter the Nextel Cup series this season by stating that he's preparing himself for seige on the track as well as in the boardroom.

Roush, who has said in the past that Americans shouldn't buy foreign cars because it hurts our economy, believes that Toyota's entry will hurt Nascar because the automaker will outspend teams affiliated with domestic automakers.

But he's ready for a fight. Roush says we're going to go to war with them, and they should give us their best shot.

Given current events, this might not be the best time for Roush, who is a war history buff, to compare sports to war. Toyota will not find that the established teams and manufactures will wither in their path, as has been the case where they have tried to engage elsewhere.

But Roush's preparations to take on Toyota go beyond tough talk. He is in negotiations to sell a significant stake of his team to an investment group headed by Boston Red Sox owner, John Henry, to raise money to race. And somehow Roush has persuaded financially troubled Ford Motor Company to help him meet the extra $10 million he said he had to spend in research and development in the offseason.

Toyota will sponsor three Nextel Cup teams this season, and is going all out to remind fans that they build cars in the U.S. New Toyota driver, Dale Jarrett, recently stated that Toyotas aren't any more foreign than some Fords or Chevys. Jarrett states that the Ford Fusions are all built in Mexico and the Monte Carlos are built in Canada. So we could go through all that stuff and see who is right or wrong, but there are a lot of Toyotas that are built right here in the United States.

And so the controvery goes on.........