Is it time for the Toyota camp to panic? It’s hard to ring the “alarm” bell for an organization that placed three of their four race cars in the top eight of the finishing order in Sunday’s NASCAR race at the Darlington Raceway. But, if you dig a bit deeper, the finger is on the alert button.

Here’s why.

Toyota put three of their four drivers in the Championship 4 a year ago too. They combined to win a NASCAR record 19 of the 36 races run in 2019 including the Daytona 500, Coke 600, Bristol Night Race and the Southern 500. Without much of a change to the aero package in 2020, you would think that they would dominate this season right?

Instead, after five races down, they’re 1-for-5.

Denny Hamlin won the season opening Daytona 500, but the rest of the camp has been quiet ever since. What’s concerning for them though is that they are lacking in terms of overall race pace. If I had to rank the top cars in terms of pure speed, I don’t think I’d have JGR in the top six or seven best.

Kyle Busch wrapped up the west coast swing with two straight top three finishes. Despite that, he warned that he almost fluked into them and that the Toyota camp is really lacking in the speed department so far.

He’s not wrong.

293 laps were run on Sunday and Toyota led exactly none of them. For the season, they’ve combined to lead just 108 laps. 93 of those 108 laps were led in the season opening Daytona 500. The only laps that they’ve led since then was all by Martin Truex Jr. who led one lap in Las Vegas, three in Fontana and 11 in Phoenix.

Also, coming into this weekend, Joe Gibbs Racing had won three of the last four Cup Series races at Darlington including a 1-2 effort last September. They’ve done so with three different drivers too.

On Sunday, they were just pedestrian.

Busch, drew a fourth place starting spot but his car failed inspection prior to the race. So, he had to come from the back instead. He was only 15th and 16th respectively through the first couple of stages. The final stage saw him hang around the top 10 before he had a late unscheduled pit stop. He’d wind up 26th, his worst finish at Darlington in his last 11 tries. Heading into this weekend, he had two top three finishes in his last three Darlington starts and wasn’t worse than 11th in his last 10 tries. He never was a factor on Sunday.

Truex Jr. had some early race damage and fought an ill handling race car. He was 24th in the first stage but found himself near 30th for much of the first 90 laps. After some repairs and adjustments, he pounced. Truex, finished third in the second stage and was there for the win. Then, he thought he had a loose wheel in the second to last stint which caused him to lose some on track spots. He’d stay out on track and finish sixth in his No. 19 Toyota.

Hamlin, was second and ninth in the first two stages and came home fifth. It was his fifth top 10 in his last six Darlington starts including his ninth in the last 11.

Jones, last year’s winner of the Southern 500, was fifth and eighth in his previous two Darlington starts to that, brought his No. 20 Toyota home eighth again.

While it was another solid outing for them, as you can see, they’ve been great in the past at Darlington. They just didn’t dominate either. Can they turn it around on Wednesday night?