Laukes Named To TRD Board Of Directors

Ed Laukes, vice president of marketing, performance and guest experience at Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc., has been named to the Toyota Racing Development USA board of directors.

Laukes is widely acknowledged to have been the driving force behind Toyota’s support of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Busch and his Kyle Busch Motorsports Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series teams. Most recently, he was responsible for managing advertising for all Toyota cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles, as well as motorsports public relations and marketing operations. He will continue to oversee the company’s motorsports activities, including strategy, research, sponsorship, advertising and merchandising activation.

“This change will better align our technical racing programs directly to the marketing department and their various initiatives,” said Bob Carter, TMS senior vice president of automotive operations. 

“We have a great group of TRD associates in Costa Mesa (Calif.) and Salisbury (N.C.), and the entire organization does an outstanding job of working together with all our race team partners,” said Laukes.  “We look forward to continued success with our many motorsports activities and earning more accolades in NASCAR, NHRA and other racing series.”

Since joining Toyota in 1989, Laukes has held various positions in both the Lexus and Toyota divisions.  He first served as district service and parts manager for the Lexus Central Area and held a variety of additional management positions in the field.  Subsequently, he held the positions of sales and production planning manager and sales administration manager at TMS headquarters in Torrance, Calif.

In 1998, Laukes was promoted to assistant general manager and later became general manager for the Lexus Southern area.  In that role, he was responsible for directing sales, service, parts, marketing and customer relations activities for the area.  Laukes also served as general manager for the Toyota New York region.

Under his guidance, Toyota and TRD have won the 2003 Indianapolis 500 with Gil de Ferran; recoded multiple victories in the Daytona 24 Hours and the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance races; won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, Baja 500 and the Baja 1000. Toyota has also earned manufacturer’s and driver’s championships in the Indy Racing League, NHRA, Grand-Am, CART, IMSA, SCORE, USAC, MTEG, CORR, TORC and LOORRS.  In stock car competition, Toyota has earned six NASCAR Camping World Truck Series manufacturer’s championships (2006-2010 and 2013) and three consecutive Nationwide Series manufacturer’s titles (2008-2010).

As part of the change, David Wilson, president and general manager of TRD, will now report directly to Laukes.