Andy Graves met with World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series Director Carlton Reimers and Tech Director Tom Devitt in August 2019 to discuss the introduction of a Toyota 410 Sprint Car engine.
Six years and over 20 national Sprint Car wins later, the TRD 410 has become a proven instrument for Roth Motorsports and potentially others who choose to purchase it.
The trajectory of that success didn’t start to take shape until a couple of years ago, according to Graves, the executive competition engineering, technical director for TRD.
“We were under no illusion we weren’t going to have the some uphill battle,” Graves said. “But we feel like the last two years… 2023 was our first full year with the World of Outlaws with James McFadden and then the second half of the year we ran with Buddy (Kofoid) in a second Roth car. We got 11 wins between the two of them in ’23. And then again in ’24 we got another 11 wins. It really feels like the last two years we’ve started to get a handle on it and we’re in a competitive position.”
Last year was the best proof of that with TRD development driver Michael “Buddy” Kofoid having a historic World of Outlaws rookie season. He ended 2024 with seven victories, 32 top fives, 53 top 10s and a fourth-place finish in the Series standings. Every goal Graves and the team set at the beginning of the year, he met.
It was the perfect of example of why Graves and Toyota pursued the development of a 410 engine – to put another step in their ladder and give their drivers another avenue to flourish.
“You need a couple different paths to keep these all-star drivers in your program,” Graves said. “I think Buddy is the exact same way. Maybe the timing isn’t perfect right now for the NASCAR side, but we’re able to keep him in, competing with the World of Outlaws and the World of Outlaws is no joke. It’s some of the toughest competition you’ll face.
“I think it has kept Buddy in our program. If we didn’t have the Sprint Car program at that time, he might have gone and done something different full-time, instead of keep racing with us. There’s no doubt that from our reputation and all the success we’ve had in USAC Midgets and Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series, and to have this next step with Winged Sprint Cars and the World of Outlaws is phenomenal for us. We’re very proud to be a part of it.”
Kofoid has already brought the engine to Victory Lane twice this season with wins at Kennedale Speedway Park and Lawton Speedway. Both Kofoid and Graves shared the same sentiment of attributing a lot the success on track and success of the engine’s development to Kofoid’s crew chief Dylan Buswell.
“Buddy and Dylan, they’ve clicked, they’ve meshed,” Graves said. “We have a really great relationship with Dylan, as well, and the work that he puts in and the communication he has with us, the things that he needs that he sees from a crew chief standpoint to give him all those tools in the toolbox.”
Buswell, 33, from Australia, has been around Sprint Car racing his entire life. His dad was a Sprint Car mechanic and when Buswell finished school, he turned to a full-time career as a Sprint Car mechanic at 15 years old. He worked as a crew chief in Australia for 10 years before moving to the United States about five years ago. Then he worked with some of the top teams in the sport before teaming with Roth and Kofoid.
That experience helped lead Buddy’s performance and the development of the TRD 410.
“[Buddy’s] obviously still quite young, so he probably hasn’t experienced a tone of different engines and different people, but he’s experienced enough to know what it is feeling, whether it is right or wrong,” Buswell said. “We had McFadden at the same time (in the second Roth Motorsports car) and their feels were 180 degrees different. I think that helped fast track things as well. We had two different perspectives and helped narrow down quicker what they needed to do to get them right.”
Two other elements that helped fast track the development of the motor are the experience McFadden brought as a former engine builder and the TRD 410 being built by two renowned engine builders – Rider Racing Engines and Speedway Motors – at the same time.
“Really, at the start of ’23, we decided that… James had a split inventory. He had some Riders and some Speedway engines,” Graves said. “Then, when Buddy came online, he had the same and we continued that into ’24. That’s still the case right now with Buddy, where Buddy and Dylan have Rider engines and Speedway engines as we continue to work on those two packages.
And Thomas (Rider) and Rick (Long with Speedway) have been great partners of ours. When there is a problem, they work together to solve the problem. We really can’t say enough about both of those guys. It’s really unique to have two star engine builders that are part of the program and work together to move the entire program forward. That’s definitely something that we have that many others can’t brag about.”
Among the multitude of reasons to work with the two builders, one stems from a promise Graves made to Reimers and Devitt in 2019. Toyota wanted to be part of the Sprint Car community.
“We didn’t want to come in and build every single component of the engine like we do on the NASCAR side. We wanted to work with existing suppliers and existing builders and that’s what we’ve done with Tom and Rick,” Graves said. “We let them develop their own cookbook so to speak for their builds. We support both of them. Again, when there is an issue that can be common across both, we all work together
“I think if you ask Buddy, or even if you ask James, Buddy and James were certainly on the same page with this, there are certain tracks that they feel like the Speedway might provide a little bit of an advantage and there are tracks that the Rider might provide a little bit of an advantage. I think that is probably a benefit for our program that you do have different packages.”
Graves admitted that “selfishly, the development hasn’t gone fast enough or seamless enough,” having to deal with a delay in 2020 due to COVID, a “wasted year” in 2021 due to crankshaft issues and then head gasket issues. But, overall, he’s proud of where the development is at now.
In 2023, he said he’d like to see half of the Sprint Car fields powered by TRD engines. At the end of last year, he and the engineers felt like the engine was finally ready to be sold to other teams.
“When you buy an engine, we’ll sell the same spec that Buddy runs, the TRD spec,” he said. “People can buy the same stuff. At least the first couple years. We want any sales to be a positive experience. It is a little bit different, obviously, from the Ford or the Chevy – the golden standard for the Series. So, we know that they’ll probably need some help with the exhaust and how to detune the engine. That’s our preference at the moment. In the future, we’ll open it up for other engine builders to buy parts.”
And while the engine reached a point where they felt like it could be sold to others, there are still plenty of goals to accomplish. Graves would eventually like to see a TRD engine win a World of Outlaws title, but for this year he’s hoping for at least a top three finish in points for Kofoid.
Buswell knows he and Kofoid are capable of it. There’s just one detail they need to iron out.
“We just need more consistency at places that are out of our comfort zone,” he said. “The 2 car (Big Game Motorsports and David Gravel), the 41 (Jason Johnson Racing and Carson Macedo), they don’t have bad nights anywhere. I feel like we have our places that we’re really good at and there are places still we need to work on. I think that’s the only thing we’re lacking. We have a great driver, great owners, obviously a great engine.”
Graves and the TRD team aren’t done with their development either. There’s still plenty to learn to compete with the Chevy-based 410 engine that’s been in development for over 40 years.
“We feel like we’ve really started making some headway and have the engine in a good place,” Graves said. “As always with these things, there’s more work to do.”
GOING PLACES: Toyota’s 410 Development, Outlaw Partnership Growing Grassroots Goals
The 2025 World of Outlaws season for Kofoid, Buswell, and Roth Motorsports continues this weekend at I-55 Federated Auto Parts Raceway Park in Pevely, MO for the Federated Auto Parts Spring Classic. For tickets, CLICK HERE.
For the complete 2025 schedule, CLICK HERE.
If you can’t make it to the track, catch every lap live on DIRTVision.
