Toyota's slow start to season scales back expectations

	If trouble qualifying wasn't bad enough for Toyota, watching Dale Jarrett's day end early in Bristol made the season even worse. John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR
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Setting expectations can be a fragile thing. Left unfulfilled, the sheer weight of their failure can lead to a pack of monkeys landing on the backs of everyone involved.

In the case of Toyota, those monkeys are here, and in record numbers.

Prior to the season, Camry driver Brian Vickers tried his best to set the bar high for his new Toyota operation. "To say that we may struggle, that's just not the right word for any of the teams," Vickers said. "When Dodge came back into the sport, it was a learning curve for them -- but they won a race their first year and sat on the Daytona pole. Hopefully, I see Toyota doing that well, if not a little bit better."

Back then, it was hard to argue with Vickers' assessment of how the Camry would perform in Nextel Cup. Sure, the car hadn't made it to the track yet, but with the sheer amount of money being spent on the project, Toyota had car owners trembling and observers curious as to whether Ford, Chevy and Dodge would quickly find themselves priced out of the sport. It seemed a pole, a race, even a spot in the Chase could be bought at the right price.

Now, those goals need to be quickly reassessed. Two months in, the Toyota experiment has proved how the old saying rings true: money can't buy happiness, or, in this case, speed. Having snagged just one of a possible fifty top-10 finishes to start the season, the manufacturer is lagging behind in all aspects of Nextel Cup, and nowhere are their failures more apparent then when you look at the overall standings.

All seven of Toyota's teams now find themselves outside the top 35 in owner's points, leaving them in the dubious position of having to qualify on speed at Martinsville.

Only 1999 Cup champ Dale Jarrett has the luxury of a provisional to fall back on, but with only two of them left to use for the rest of the year, his mulligans are quickly running out.

It's through Jarrett's eyes that you can sense the frustration Toyota teams are starting to feel within their ranks. One of only two drivers to start all five races, Jarrett has needed the benefit of a past champion's provisional four times to simply make the field, and when he does, he can't get out of everyone's way fast enough.

After running a disappointing 22nd at Daytona to start the year, Jarrett followed with finishes of 32nd, 33rd, 36th and 42nd. Bristol was the straw that broke the camel's back. After being punted into the wall by Matt Kenseth just 42 laps into the race, the usually calm Jarrett lost his cool. Pushing safety workers aside, he launched an embarrassing, expletive-filled tirade that would make anyone's grandmother blush as Kenseth's car drove by on the track.