By: Rob D'Amico and Michele Rahal from Race Day on Fox Sports Radio

Go ahead and admit it. You love a good feud as much as the next guy or girl and surely as much as we do. Earnhardt vs. Busch, Carl Edwards vs. Busch or Robby Gordon vs. everybody. It’s in our nature as humans to slow down for the car wreck, fight or stretch our hearing just a little bit further for a good screaming match. Jerry Springer figured that one out a long time ago.

What we saw at the Camping World 400 at Dover, Delaware this past weekend wasn’t your traditional driver vs. driver feud. It was the best race of the year. Funny thing was, it was among the three Roush cars of Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. In fact, if Jamie McMurray hadn’t been taken out, chances are he would have been in the fray. The teammates tried everything known to man to best each other including switching lines, rubbing on each other and three-wide racing. In the end what was obvious is that the power plants were powerful and evenly matched.

But in the grand scheme of things the show Roush created was much more important. It was the first musket ball that found its mark. Who shot it? Jack Roush. Who caught the lead dead on? Toyota. Roush Fords finished in the first three spots while the Joe Gibbs cars blew up, came apart or couldn’t get out of their own way.

In Roush’s own words he stated last year that, "We're going to go to war with them, and they should give us their best shot because we'll be giving as good as we take," He added, "Toyota will bring changes in the way we conduct business. They have deep pockets … they'll try to put the rest of us in a catch-up scenario, and I'm trying to prepare for that. I expect to hand Toyota their head over the short term."  Indeed.

Roush has been on a two-pronged mission since 2004 when Toyota announced that they would enter the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and escalated that strategy in 2007 when Toyota stated it would enter the Nationwide, formerly Busch, and the Sprint Cup series. That mission involved a very public outcry that would have made Paul Revere’s famous ride, warning of the imminent British invasion, seem like the pitiful little pony that shows up at the rich kids birthday party.

The second part of this strategy is genius. If Roush could make enough noise and get the fan base to go along with it, then Ford might pony (no pun intended) up more technology, money or services in kind. He screamed often and loud and Ford wrote big checks. Why? It all stems from the deep pockets that Toyota does indeed possess. Although it’s a misnomer, the general perception is that everything Toyota enters they spend until they win. The truth is Toyota have been in Formula One for 6 years with a yearly budget upwards of $400 million and have never come close to winning.

Toyota struggled in the trucks and then began to win. They struggled in Sprint cup and Nationwide in 2007 and now, in 2008, they are winning in all three manufacturer series. Now comes the adjustment in the Roush strategy. Roush, Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge lobbied to hobble the horsepower that Toyota has found in the Truck series and the Nationwide Series. What’s up next? Is there any doubt that the next salvo fired will be at the Toyota Sprint Cup Series engines? Genius.

The other side of this Hatfield and McCoy story is that Toyota hasn’t taken the assault lying down. Lee White, once a friend and employee of Roush’s, is now the President of Toyota Racing Development, the racing arm in America for the Japanese manufacturer. Often Roush would accuse Toyota of cheating or down right espionage. When Carl Edwards was caught with an oil lid removed from the interior of his car, White stated, "I guarantee you the cover bolts didn't fall out, because if they fall, the engine leaks and you can't run," he said. "If you want something to fall off, you fix it so it can." The absence of the oil tank cover can allegedly give the car 240 more pounds of down-force.

Lord knows Lee White didn’t stop there. On the subject of NASCAR restricting the Toyota’s horsepower in the Nationwide series recently, White said that the ruling “could be more far-reaching than simply mandating Toyota adjust its Nationwide engine.” His words may be regarded as prophetic if Toyota catches it breath in early 2009. NASCAR could restrict the horsepower of the Toyota’s across the board. As it stands now Toyota has taken the big Chase hit with Busch, Hamlin and Stewart. That won’t stop Jack.

Dover was the proof that Roush’s strategy has worked, if only temporarily. The Ford’s even sounded different than the other marques. Toyota is now faced with stressing their power plants with the only thing they can, higher RPM’s and a smoother drive train. The drive train stress was evident this weekend with the mechanical failures suffered by the Joe Gibbs Racing, the default factory team for Toyota.

Make no mistake, this is a self-proclaimed war between Roush-Fenway and Toyota, but behind the scenes it goes further. The remaining manufacturers don’t mind if Roush is the mouthpiece, but concurrently they to are lobbying NASCAR to slow down the perceived juggernaut Toyota. That’s fine with them.

The biggest problem with this type of fight is that it looks great in the press, but it rarely comes to a resolution. Roush is gaining ground rapidly in the Chase and isn’t that the real end game? Jack Roush craftily got exactly what he wanted but the war goes on. It will be a very expensive war indeed.

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Race Day on Fox Sports Radio can be heard every Sunday Morning from 6-9am eastern time on 220 FOX Affiliates, XM Radio Channel 142 and streamed live 24/7 at FoxSports.com

Rob D'Amico and also be heard every Friday at 1pm eastern on SPEED Radio at SPEEDTV.com Keyword: Radio Get the show archives here