NASCAR's new Car of Tomorrow

[strad]

Bottom post of the previous page:

No sweat

[CevertAngel]

They run rear wings in most forms of motorsport and I can almost guarantee that not one person has ever been decapitated by one falling off. That's an incredibly stupid suggestion.

All everyone does is moan about how rubbish NASCAR is and then they make some insignificant changes to the car; you have no idea what effect it's going to have, but you moan about it as if you've been fans of the series all your life.

True Paul............But still you dont want the chance of anything happening if its not properly secured.........In any injury.

By the way Ive been a NASCAR / Stock Car fan for nearly 30yrs.......And Being 45........Id say its almost a lifetime fan thing........Same as with F1

[caneparo]

I assume that all of you know that Ammermuller will drive for toyota right?

[Debo318]

you guys were talking about the Impala going into NASCAR? Well, only difference between this and the Monte is the letters on the nose.

[strad]

Scott Riggs:"It's rear wings and a splitter on a box..It's not pretty and I don't like the way it drives because it takes away the ability to run side by side."

Greg Zipadelli:" It's too much...With the effort put forth for Daytona 2007 and then throwing these cars at Bristol and Vegas..you're just asking people to do too much."

Tony Stewart:" I thought it would look better with paint on it and it didn't look any better..it's still real ugly..It doesn't look like a step foreward."

Jeff Gordon:" I've heard a lot of guys are having issues with the cars pushing. If you look at the car it's very rear-downforce heavy. The front downforce, you're limited. We had some issues at Michigan. We addressed those to NASCAR."

There are all kinds of issues..it's going to cost team even for haulers as the taller CoT doesn't fit in their current car haulers. New ones are on backorder. This could wipe out the borderline teams

The rear wing will be adjustable at the track, but not during the race. In fact like restictor plates they will be distributed at the track by NASCAR.

Like the rear wing the front splitter will be adjustable, but not during the race.

The rear clip and frame rails may NOT be modified in any way, leaving only the front clip and steering and shocks to be fiddled with.


Cars must pass a new complex template that has tolerances as small as .06 in. and as of November only one of 16 cars had been able to pass.
Once damaged front or rear, it's not fixable at the track...Kyle Petty:" When ya tear the rear wing off how are you going to put it back on?"

Steve Hmiel general manager at DEI says it will cost a million dollars per car number to change over.

One major problem is the drivers..Remember the trouble veterans like Dale senior and Rusty Wallace had when they change3d to radial tires? This will be much much bigger an issue.." There will be people who won't be able to drive those cars who are able to drive cars today when you can adjust the set up or aero to match the driver" says Jack Roush.
Jack continues.."There's less we can do that is l;ow cost to be able to optimize the cars. We'll end up spending money on technology that we would rather not have to spend it on in order to find an edge."

[Cheeveer]

Is it final that NASCAR will use these full-time in 2008, or is 2007 just a test year to see ig it actually is an improvement.

[HC]

I don't care how ugly they are, as long as they provide excellent racing. They are set to debut @ the .5 mile Bristol Motor Speedway.

That was my opinion too but there has been a lot of bad stories about the car. Most of them are about how vulnerable this car is and some are about how it won't improve side by side racing. Bristol won't really tell a lot about the car coz it doesn't really matter what kind of car you bring to the little bullring. I rather see these cars run on Atlanta or California and see how they do there.

[CevertAngel]

I don't care how ugly they are, as long as they provide excellent racing. They are set to debut @ the .5 mile Bristol Motor Speedway.

That was my opinion too but there has been a lot of bad stories about the car. Most of them are about how vulnerable this car is and some are about how it won't improve side by side racing. Bristol won't really tell a lot about the car coz it doesn't really matter what kind of car you bring to the little bullring. I rather see these cars run on Atlanta or California and see how they do there.

Yeah Bristol Raceway aint exactly the greatest testing ground..........Atlanta will be a much better challenge to see how the wing is really going to effect the run..


The only thing I like about the Bristol Track is that you can watch the action of the whole track at almost the same time because of it's smaller size.............I have a few really good memories of going to races there in my 10yrs in the USA.

[greenengineer]

The wing is just the most obvious change. And it's a cost cutting move in that teams will, in theory, run the same body everywhere, just changing the wing to suit the track, instead of running different bodies at all tracks.

Other changes include making the car "boxier", and modifying the driver's compartment to improve safety.

It's ugly, but not any worse than they already looked. I'd love to see the cars go back closer to stock, but don't see how you can really do that. The truth is NASCAR has not been stock since the 1960's.

Given the number of teams trying to run at Daytona, I don't see any problem with car counts, COT or not.

[Bram]

Yeah I liked it when they had real bumpers and stuff. Even in the early to mid 90's they had seperate bumpers (not the original ones of course). The one body thing simply doesn't fit in a stockcar serie.

[CevertAngel]

Yeah I liked it when they had real bumpers and stuff. Even in the early to mid 90's they had seperate bumpers (not the original ones of course). The one body thing simply doesn't fit in a stockcar serie.

Exactly My thoughts too Bram...........The NASCAR's these days just arent as Tough looking as they were ...........They look rather boring now if you ask me.........There is little to no inderviduality anymore and that too I miss alot.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Yeah I liked it when they had real bumpers and stuff. Even in the early to mid 90's they had seperate bumpers (not the original ones of course). The one body thing simply doesn't fit in a stockcar serie.

.They look rather boring now if you ask me.........There is little to no inderviduality anymore and that too I miss alot.

Well I dont think thats a problem unique to NASCAR...... it goes through the whole scale from F1 through to what we drive on the roads. With the move to the Global car concept with cars of different 'makes' all being based on the same floorpan and mechanicals it will only compound the lack of individuality.we see. From the rear it is now difficult to differentiate many cars from each other, the only recognition is by grille style (BMW Alfa and others are still noticeable thanks to that).

I guess the plus side is that it keeps the cost of new cars down by reducing tooling costs and development.

[Bram]

Yeah I liked it when they had real bumpers and stuff. Even in the early to mid 90's they had seperate bumpers (not the original ones of course). The one body thing simply doesn't fit in a stockcar serie.

Exactly My thoughts too Bram...........The NASCAR's these days just arent as Tough looking as they were ...........They look rather boring now if you ask me.........There is little to no inderviduality anymore and that too I miss alot.

I'm happy that I have a nice (and still growing) collection of early 90's NASCAR races so I can go back in time for a few hours to the good old days

[CevertAngel]

Yeah I liked it when they had real bumpers and stuff. Even in the early to mid 90's they had seperate bumpers (not the original ones of course). The one body thing simply doesn't fit in a stockcar serie.

Exactly My thoughts too Bram...........The NASCAR's these days just arent as Tough looking as they were ...........They look rather boring now if you ask me.........There is little to no inderviduality anymore and that too I miss alot.

I'm happy that I have a nice (and still growing) collection of early 90's NASCAR races so I can go back in time for a few hours to the good old days

Thankfully me too Bram.............Damn I miss some of those good old days.

And 'Ballies your right too.........Thats why I like the classic older cars where you could always tell what it was........That why I love my Ferrari and my BMW road cars.........You can easily tell what both of them are at first look at them...........Not after five minutes of looking at them........

Classic is better than Plastic.........

[SBan83]

COT - Did You Know? from a David Newton article at ESPN.com:
Did you know NASCAR will pay for the rear wings used on the new Car of Tomorrow, then distribute them at the track and collect them after each race?
Did you know the COT, which is two inches taller and four inches wider than the current car, will fit inside the current haulers?
Did you know the inspection process at the track should be faster with the COT because of nine radio frequency IDs that will be installed on each chassis, allowing inspectors to verify its legitimacy electronically instead of manually?
Did you know the restrictor plate as we know it at Daytona and Talladega likely will become obsolete with the design of the COT engine package?
Did you know the COT looks more like the car on the street than the one currently on the track because the angles of the windows and headlights aren't nearly as severe?.......see more and the full article at ESPN.com: Car of Tomorrow shaping up as pretty nice ride.

Man, now I'm sold on this idea for sure. No need to update haulers, quicker inspection, NO RESTRICTOR PLATES NO MORE !!!!!

[HC]

Did you also read that article on ESPN from that guy who made the COT. He was going like these modern stockcars look like they´ve been a wreck. Because of aerodynamics the whole car is messed up. The COT will have a normal shape again and bring the car back into stockcar.