Is Toyota done for 2007?

Note: This was originally posted March 30, 2007.

I don't want to say that Michael Waltrip is the primary spokesman for Toyota. There are other teams participating in Toyota's entry to Cup racing. Red Bull and Bill Davis to be exact. But when you think about Toyota in Nextel Cup racing, who do you think about?

Fact is, Michael has most of the commercials on tv. Mikey IS the spokesman for Toyota on tv. Or he was. I watched all the practice and qualifying on tv today, and I can't remember seeing a single Michael commercial. Toyota may have pulled the plug on that. And with good reason. Michael Waltrip Racing got two cars into the field at Martinsville today, but Mike was not among them, again.

Michael is still minus 27 or 25 points down in the points standing, depending on which website you read.

What should Mikey do? Should he continue to race or should he put someone else in the car? Right now he's not doing much racing. Since Daytona, Michael has failed to qualify for every single race. Does Mike have any development drivers on the horizon? I don't know. If he does, I don't know about anyone.

My answer? I say bring in Mike Skinner. Put Skinner in the car, see if he can qualify it. If he can't, send him home. But if he can, let's see what he can do. Mikey, it might be time to give up driving. You can't get the job done driving, these days, but you can still be a sponsor's dream.