'Car of Tomorrow' still on track for '07 race debut

'Car of Tomorrow' still on track for '07 race debut

By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
January 20, 2006
09:41 AM EST (14:41 GMT)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR is expected to announce Monday a deployment strategy for its "Car of Tomorrow" that will see the groundbreaking design phased into use in the Nextel Cup Series over three years, beginning in 2007.

Several highly-placed sources from NASCAR teams participating in Preseason Thunder testing earlier this week at Daytona International Speedway confirmed discussions with NASCAR about using the Car of Tomorrow first at road courses and short tracks in 2007, followed by two-mile and longer tracks in 2008 and intermediate speedways in 2009.

"Our typical way of doing business is to service our customers, before we open it up to the rest of the world, so I'm sure a lot of -- if not all of the owners -- have been talked to," Nextel Cup Series director John Darby said. "And the way to best service our customers with a plan like this is to deploy it to the path of least resistance -- or to what's easiest for the car owners.

"Through their input and cooperation, as well as that of the manufacturers, the car will race in '07, just as we've said all along. Where it races first is almost insignificant because you can make a lot of arguments about it and they all make sense."

Thursday, NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow prototype tested at Daytona, as usual driven by Brett Bodine. It was joined by Dodge's model, which is being developed by Petty Enterprises and was driven by Kyle Petty.

It was the second consecutive week at which NASCAR's prototype tested at Daytona. Thursday, the cars executed a planned test program of alternating using rear spoilers and rear wings, while leading and following each other and comparing driver feelings and computer data.

"It's different the way it sucks up in the draft," Petty said. "It's different the way it feels around other cars. The nuance of the car is just a lot different."

"We're just here to do multi-car runs, try to evaluate its effect on the second car," Bodine said. "All the aero configurations that we worked on last week, we're letting Kyle do all the analysis. He was just here [Wednesday] with his current car, so he's got a good feel for the differences between the two."

While both tests were open to any organization that wanted to participate, several team principals this week said they were waiting until NASCAR zeroed in on the final specs of the car a little more before they expended more time and resources on development.

Petty is among the drivers who tested his team's prototype last October at Talladega Superspeedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway.

"We can learn a good bit with two cars," Bodine said. "Kyle's been working with us since the beginning with this project. We've had a really good working relationship, and just the fact that there's only two cars, we can still learn a good bit about them. We already have."

"We're trying the wing, we're trying the spoilers," Petty said. "You're trying a lot of different stuff and I think you're still in that stage of development. I think that's a big thing. How do you know [what's going to happen] until you come up with the end product?

"I think every time you take it to a racetrack, you get closer and closer."

To date, the Car of Tomorrow has tested at the .750-mile short track at Richmond, 1.5-mile tracks outside Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta and the superspeedways at Talladega and Daytona.

"I think the chassis, the frame and roll cage and where the major body parts are mounted on the car is pretty well locked-in," Darby said of the car's ongoing development. "The part we're still working on, from NASCAR's side, is that we'd like to keep the car as adjustable as possible.

"Because the more adjustments the teams have externally, that eliminates the need to adjust it by bending and shaping and twisting body panels. You can feel comfortable about building a car that's in a straight line because you've got devices, like the front splitter or a spoiler or a wing or whatever it might be, to get the car to work."

NASCAR's idea with the Car of Tomorrow is for owners to be able to use the same chassis anywhere the circuit races: Short tracks, road course, intermediate ovals or superspeedways.

"One-size-fits-all is fairly accurate," Darby said. "Obviously, teams will still have a half a dozen to 10 or a dozen cars still on board. The difference is, the cars will be so similar that if they do get behind the eight-ball, they'll be able to pull another one out of inventory and keep going."

Darby said the Car of Tomorrow would not be an "IROC Series" of identical cars and that once manufacturers placed their decal kits and brand marks on them, they would maintain their unique identities.

He cited Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Toyota when referring to the future identification of Nextel Cup cars.

Toyota is expected to announce its move from the Craftsman Truck Series into competing with cars in NASCAR on Tuesday evening during the Lowe's Motor Speedway Media Tour.