TORRANCE, Calif. -- For the past six months Toyota has strongly hinted it would only be building one type of engine for open-wheel racing by 2003. On Thursday it became a fact and that should have sent Championship Auto Racing Teams into an immediate emergency board meeting.

If not a state of panic.

Last April, Toyota announced it would begin constructing normally-aspirated motors for the Indy Racing League and Indianapolis 500 in 2003. It also said it would take a bottom-line look at whether to continue with CART's current turbocharged engine formula.

But, because CART has continued to drag its feet and still doesn't have an engine plan for 2003 and beyond, Toyota made its own decision.

"We've been talking about this since last September and we've been waiting and waiting on CART to tell us what they are going to do so we could have some flexibility in what we do," said Les Unger, national motorsports manager for Toyota Motor Sales.

"But we still don't know and there is only 12 months to go so the clock struck midnight. We couldn't wait any longer and we recognized we can't produce two different types of engines, it's simply too costly.

"We are not trying to tell anybody what they need to do, everybody has to make their own decisions."

Mixed reaction
Naturally, the reactions among CART owners and manufacturers were a mixture of understanding, scorn and concern.

"My honest opinion is that I think Toyota is trying to drive the decision-making in the world of engines," said Chip Ganassi, who won four consecutive CART titles with Honda before switching to Toyota in 2000. "And, for a company that spends that kind of money, they have that right."

Derrick Walker, who fields an Oldsmobile-powered team in the IRL and a Toyota-powered team in CART, said this announcement certainly shouldn't have surprised anyone.

"This has been known but it's like nobody has been listening," said Walker, whose CART effort has been subsidized by Toyota this season with Japanese driver Tora Takagi. "They gave us advance warning and came clean, unlike what Mercedes did last year.

"But this is a big deal with major implications. Especially if Ford gets out after 2002."

Kim Green, the general manager for Team Motorola and brother of Barry Green, sees Toyota's action as bad news.

"I'm disgusted with what Toyota has done, it's obvious they are trying to play hardball," said Green, whose team campaigns Michael Andretti with Honda power.

"The question is, do we adopt the IRL rules or would Honda and Ford-Cosworth be interested in supplying more than nine drivers in the future? It's a big problem."

Engine troubles
In the current landscape, Honda, Ford and Toyota each supply nine drivers with engines. Next season will not be affected because Toyota will honor its contracts with Newman-Haas, Patrick Racing, Target/Ganassi, PacWest and Walker.

But 2003 figures to be mighty interesting in the FedEx Championship.

"Both Honda and Ford are adamant we won't be changing engines until 2004 so we all understand 2003 is going to be a difficult year," said Tom Elliott, president of Honda Performance Development.

"Ford hasn't officially said what they are going to do but let's assume they will be around in 2003. Between us, we'll have to supply more cars because Toyota is walking away from their teams."

Nobody at Ford could be reached for comment but Bobby Rahal told his fellow owners at Mid-Ohio last month he didn't think Ford would be around after 2002.

"I'd like to see us adopt the IRL engine specs and chassis rules because it makes sense," said Rahal last weekend at the CART race in England. "Especially in the current economic climate."

Of course there are two major questions on the heels of this announcement. Will CART's members vote to adopt an IRL-type engine at next week's franchise meeting in Houston? And would the specs be close enough for Toyota to remain in CART?

"Our owners are definitely divided on this issue," said Walker, who will present a proposal to his fellow owners after spending the past two weeks talking with all three manufacturers. "We've got guys who agree we should go with IRL rules, guys who are on the fence and guys who are anti-IRL.

"I'm suggesting two choices. For the pro-IRL, adopt the IRL engine rule and soup it up a little bit but we can all still go to Indy. Or, for the anti-IRL, go to a single formula turbo engine that is all the same and you can run longer that you have to pay for."

Added Ganassi: "I hope we do adopt the IRL rules, it makes sense in today's world."

Toyota has stated it would be interested in building engines for both series but only if CART adopts normally-aspirated rules very close to the IRL's. And CART claims it must have more of a high-tech engine for its road courses.

"Unless the rules are identical, you're going to have two different motors because you can't use the same block or cylinder head and you'll use more revs and a different stroke," said Brad Filbey, the team manager for Mo Nunn Racing in CART. "And that's not going to save (Toyota) any money."

Unger claims Toyota's main reasoning for going IRL is financial and if CART went normally-aspirated it would have to be very similar to the IRL, which supposedly has a $100,000 ceiling on engines.

"In what we researched there is a significant gap in the cost to develop an IRL engine vs. the turbo engine," said Unger, whose engines are estimated to cost Toyota anywhere from $5-8 million for a season.

"This is a financial issue because in CART there is no way our investment can be recouped. So that's why we're going the IRL route. We want there to be less cost for us and for the competitor."

However, Toyota has been its own worst enemy in this area. It reportedly gave Ganassi a multi-million dollar package to leave Honda and, this year, enticed Newman/Haas and Patrick Racing to switch from Ford with money and free engines. Supposedly, Bruce McCaw's PacWest team is the only Toyota customer paying for engines.

"They've probably kept a lot of teams in business. They kept me in, for sure," Walker admitted.

What does the future hold?
Pat Patrick, one of CART's co-founders, admits he's not sure what the future holds.

"We need to get our act together on this and Toyota had to go on down the road," said Patrick, whose cars have won three Indy 500s. "If I decide to keep running after 2002, I'd like to stay with Toyota but we'll see what happens.

"I'm interested in the Indy 500, but not the IRL."

Honda isn't ruling out anything just yet.

"If CART goes normally aspirated with some kind of IRL-plus specs and more freedom, we'll take a serious look at it," said Elliott, whose company has won five consecutive CART championships. "Our focus is CART and we really don't care about cherry picking Indy but we would look at it because our teams want us to.

"But my major concern is what Ford is going to do."

Carl Haas admits a decision should have been made by now and it's possible his constituents will go for an IRL engine.

"There are a couple of other engine manufacturers interested in CART so I'm not sure what we'll decide," said Haas, saying that Audi could be a player if CART stays turbocharged.

Unger says just because Toyota will no longer make turbocharged engines doesn't mean it won't stay involved in CART.

"We recently extended our contract to do Toyota-Atlantics through 2004, we've got a contract to sponsor the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach through 2005 and we're the presenting sponsor of the Marlboro 500 at Fontana through 2003.

"And we intend to stay competitive in CART next year."

But, in the event CART doesn't adopt a suitable engine plan for Toyota and it no longer competes on the track, there will be a huge void.

"Look at all the money Toyota spends on engines, teams, advertising, marketing and sponsoring races," Walker said. "It's staggering and to think that could be gone after 2003 is shocking."

That reality should even register with the CART owners -- by next week.