Next time you put on a superior smile as you whistle past a comfortable couple in their white Toyota Camy just be warned: there's a bunch of big brothers that can blow your hot hatch into the weeds...

Toyota US is to expand its motor racing involvement in the US to include two more categories run by the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (Nascar).

Its Tundra bakkie has raced with increasing success in Nascar's Craftsmen Truck Series for the past two years and now Toyota will enter a Camry in the prestigious Nascar Nextel Cup and Busch series in 2007.

Toyota's involvement - the first foreign automaker to enter this category of racing since Jaguar in the 1950's - means all three Nascar National series will have four manufacturers competing; the others are Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford.

Dave Illingworth from Toyota US said: "2007 will be a doubly special year for Toyota - we'll celebrate 50 years in the US and join the Nascar Nextel Cup series, America's premier racing championship.

"Toyota has been an important part of US motorsport for almost 25 years. We've competed and won in several series and on tracks across America. We look forward to 2007 when the green flag waves to start the Daytona 500 and the line-up features Camrys."

Toyota will this year celebrate its 24th year of participation in American professional car racing. Toyota teams have won Imsa, Cart, IRL and off-road racing championships - including such historic events as the Daytona Rolex 24, the Sebring 12-hour, the Baja 1000 and the Indianapolis 500.

Though a subsidiary of Toyota Japan, Toyota US has a growing presence in North America and is building its 12th factory there. It assembles more than a million vehicles a year in North America – a number that will grow further in the short term as the new plant comes on stream.

Toyota is the fourth-largest seller of vehicles in the US with a 13.3% market share and since 1968 has built more than 12-million vehicles there. The Camry, assembled in Kentucky, is the biggest seller.

More than 6.5-million have been sold in the US and the car has been the top-selling car in the US for eight of the last nine years.