Toyota boss to enter 24-hour race

Toyota Motor Corp. said incoming President Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company's founder, will be a driver on the automaker's team in a 24-hour endurance race in Germany.

No back-seat driver: Incoming Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda sits behind the wheel of a Lexus for a test drive on the Fuji Speedway Formula One racing course in Oyama, Shizuoka Prefecture, in October 2007. AP PHOTO

Toyoda, 52, was tapped as president in January — an appointment viewed as symbolic of the automaker's determination to ride out the global slump and what is expected to be its first annual loss in nearly 60 years.

The grandson of Toyota founder Kiichiro Toyoda is one of four drivers on the Toyota team entering the May 21-24 Nurburgring 24-hour endurance race.

The race is an opportunity to test the reliability of products in development, and Toyoda will be racing in the Lexus LF-A, which also entered the race last year, spokesman Paul Nolasco said.