Tyler Gibbs, general manager of Toyota Racing Development, says the numerous engine problems Toyota has had this year appear to have been caused by faulty valve springs.

Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota retired from the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway last Sunday night with an engine failure. It was the fifth to happen to a Toyota driver this year. The other four occurred before the two-week break in Joe Gibbs Racing’s Toyotas driven by Truex, Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs.

Before the Richmond race, Tyler Gibbs said each engine had been examined, the cause of the failure had been determined and the OEM was confident the problem had been resolved. Then Truex’s Toyota went into the Richmond shop with engine failure after 250 laps.

Tyler Gibbs said Thursday that the engine failure in Truex’s Toyota at Richmond was similar to the one Bell suffered at World Wide Technology Raceway in Gateway in June.

“The root cause appears to be some inconsistency in the quality of our valve springs,” Gibbs said, noting that the OEM is working with its suppliers to resolve the issues.

“We sent a TRD fire team from our Costa Mesa engine shop to Michigan this weekend to make tuning updates to all of our engines. We are confident that this refurbishment step will give us the durability reserve we need.

“We only had one failure in 2023. TRD takes full responsibility for the problems we had this year and we fell far short of what is acceptable.”

Deb Williams is a North Carolina native and an award-winning motorsports journalist who has covered auto racing for four decades. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites, including espnW.com, USA Today and The Charlotte Observer. Her accolades include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, the National Motorsports Press Association’s Writer of the Year award twice and the Russ Catlin Award twice. She has also won an award in the North Carolina Press Association’s sports reporting category. During her career, Deb has served as editor-in-chief of GT Motorsports magazine and spent 18 years at Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene, including 10 years as the publication’s editor. In 2024, she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.