Yuji Takata takes on NASCAR.

Having moved to America for the 2003 racing season, Japanese racer Yuji Takata entered the ARCA series, a junior feeder series to NASCAR's top divisions. Backed by namesake company, Takata, Yuji Takata finished 18th in the final standings, crashing out of around half of the races and achieved a best finish of 12th at Salem. Nevertheless, Takata felt ready for the next step, the 2004 NASCAR Busch Series and began talking to some teams with the Takata company behind him to help sweeten the deal.

Off Season News
2004 will see the new 'Car of Tomorrow' make its debut, made mandatory for the Nextel Cup Series but optional for the Busch Series to help out the lesser funded teams. The COT is very much different to the traditional stock car concept seen previously in NASCAR taking a look that is much more authentic and true to the road car designs they are based from, a look very similar to that in the Australian V8 Supercar Championship. The change to was first announced back in the 2001 season in response to the fatal accident of Dale Earnhardt during the Daytona 500, the powers that be deciding a safer car design would be needed. The prototype COT design was released early on in the 2003 season with an emphasis on safety in mind. Since then NASCAR's top teams have been developing their own COTs to race in the 2004 season. But the American trio of Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet would no longer be alone as the new regulations had succeeded in attracting some foreign brands into the series.

Chevrolet will continue to fund three of their teams, each of which are building their own version of their new car, the Chevrolet SS, essentially a rebranded Holden VY Commodore. These three teams are Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Ford will fund two teams, Roush Racing and Robert Yates Racing, both building their own cars. Ford's new car is the Ford BA Falcon, similar to that seen in the Australian V8s. Hence with proven designs, Chevrolet and Ford are expected to have the early advantage.

Dodge will back Evernham Motorsports, the only team opting to build Dodge's new entry, the Dodge Stratus.

Audi will enter NASCAR for the first time with Richard Childress Racing with the Audi A6 C5.

Honda will enter with Penske Racing with the Honda Accord MK7.

Mercedes-Benz will enter with Chip Ganassi Racing with the C-Class W203.

Petty Enterprises will receive partial backing from BMW to build BMW M3 E46s.

Bill Davis Racing will receive partial backing from Mazda to build the Mazda 6.

Toyota, Hyundai and Nissan are reported to be considering an entry in future seasons.

In other news, the proposed 'Chase for the Cup' concept has been rejected and the conventional method for deciding the championship will be retained. Instead the a new points system will be adopted where only the top thirty finishers will score points. Finally drivers signed to full time drives in the Nextel Cup Series will be banned from competing in the Busch and Craftsman Truck series.

The Nextel Cup will also include a handful of flyaway races in Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, Japan and Australia.

The Busch Series still allowed the old NASCAR spec stock cars to be raced up until the end of the 2005 season. However these cars would be forced to carry ballast and run a smaller engine to prevent them from any performance advantage.