Polesitter Kyle Busch isn’t the only driver who will have to go to the back of the pack Sunday for NASCAR’s Shelby 427 Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas.

He’ll be joined in the back by Brian Vickers and Scott Speed of Red Bull Racing, David Reutimann of Michael Waltrip Racing and Marcos Ambrose, whose car is run out of Waltrip’s shop.

All but Busch had problems with engines built by Toyota Racing Development, similar to problems that forced Vickers and Waltrip to the back of the pack last week at California.

Busch’s Toyota engine was built by Joe Gibbs Racing, so the failure of his engine isn’t related to the other four. However, the failure of the four engines is an embarrassment for Toyota, which thought it had solved the problem after California.

In other engine news, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon apparently had the same faulty valves in their engines last week at California as their Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. had. Johnson’s and Gordon’s engines held together for the entire race, while Martin’s and Earnhardt’s blew up at the same time.

Here’s the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service account of both issues.

Notebook: Toyota working to correct engine issues

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(February 28, 2009)

LAS VEGAS — Toyota doesn’t want to see its competitors going to the rear because of post-qualifying engine changes — and neither does NASCAR.

Wear problems between the camshaft and lifters in engines supplied by Toyota Racing Development precipitated post-qualifying engine changes in the Camrys of David Reutimann, Marcos Ambrose, Brian Vickers and Scott Speed.

This marks the second straight week TRD teams have been victimized by similar issues. Last week at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., Vickers, the pole winner, and Michael Waltrip changed engines. NASCAR’s one-engine rule stipulates that the penalty for changing power plants is dropping to the rear of the field for the start of a race.

The engine change that will send pole winner Kyle Busch to the rear for the start of Sunday’s Shelby 427 Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was for an unrelated issue. Joe Gibbs Racing builds the engines for the No. 18 Toyota Busch drives; Busch blew an engine during Friday’s Cup pre-qualifying practice session to necessitate the engine change.

TRD president Lee White said Saturday that Toyota hasn’t identified the specific problem but has changed some of its lubricants in an attempt to correct the issue.

“It’s a wear issue between the camshafts and the lifters, so it’s either a coating, lubrication, lack of lubrication, too much lubrication, not enough coating, material situation, or just a simple fact that we haven’t been testing,” White said.

“No one has been at the racetrack running anything — we haven’t been to our proving grounds in over a month. When NASCAR said there isn’t any testing, we didn’t test. So Fontana is the first time — aside from two tire tests — that we have been on the racetrack in cars. We did a mountain of testing in dynos (dynamometers), but we don’t race dynos.”

White added that talks with NASCAR have been constructive.

“They were supportive, understood that we had issues and then obviously concerned about teams and sponsors and the image of the series — just like we are — but supportive,” White said. “We explained to them what we are trying to do, in the near term and long term, and they said ‘Fine, sounds like a good direction, and make it work.’”
DUCHARDT: ALL HMS ENGINES HAD PARTS FROM SAME BATCH

The valve train parts that failed in the engines of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin last Sunday at Auto Club Speedway weren’t unique to those two cars, Hendrick Motorsports vice president of development Doug Duchardt said Saturday.

Duchardt confirmed that the failures were part of a batch problem but said that all Hendrick Chevrolets and all the Chevrolets of Hendrick engine lease customers — notably the Stewart-Haas Racing cars driven by Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman — all contained parts from the same batch.

“Both cars (Earnhardt’s and Martin’s) had valve train failures that were related to a specific batch of parts from a vendor,” Duchardt said. “All of our engines, lease programs included, had parts from the same batch, so we’re glad it wasn’t more widespread.

“It’s always extremely disappointing when something like that happens, but, fortunately, it’s a problem we can quickly address and fix. Our engine team did a great job identifying the root cause, and it shouldn’t affect us moving forward.”

In a Friday interview at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Cup champion Jimmie Johnson gave the impression that only the cars of Earnhardt and Martin used engine parts from the batch in question.

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