May 24, 2010
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
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In a matter of weeks, NASCAR will debut the Nationwide version of the Car of Tomorrow at the July 2 Daytona race. The car will also be run at Michigan, Richmond and Charlotte later this season.
This brings to mind a plethora of questions, the most pressing of which is, can the teams afford a new car?
In today's trying economic times where several teams have been forced to merge, or run limited schedules, or even close up shop completely, debuting a new car is going to raise expenses. Especially in the Nationwide series, where teams are already struggling, the expense might prove more than some can endure.
One of NASCAR's reasons for changing to the COT platform was to limit the budget that teams have to spend on racing. However, the new car has not had the intended effect; if anything, the COT will raise expenses in the Nationwide series as teams struggle to field two different types of cars through the remainder of the year and then switch over completely for the start of the 2011 season.
"I think the biggest challenge, not only for the teams using the Chevrolet Impala, but for all these Nationwide teams -- is the economic times that we're in, and these teams transitioning from the current car, to the new car, while they're racing the current car," Shane Martin, GM Racing Nationwide Series program manager was quoted as saying in a Dave Rodman article on nascar.com. "I applaud NASCAR's efforts and the fact that they're allowing us to get points in four races, while getting ready for next year, but the fact is these teams have to build a new car that's a different wheelbase and a different chassis."
Some of the Nationwide teams that have Cup series connections do not find themselves in such bad shape as they are able to convert old Cup chassis. Still, are the teams without those connections going even be able to survive this transition? Or will they have to shut down operations altogether?
It would seem that NASCAR has learned from the fiasco that was the Cup version of the Car of Tomorrow. They have made several changes to the cars to improve racing and driver safety, such as replacing the rear wing with a spoiler so that the cars don't go airborne when spun around and they are incorporating these changes into the Nationwide car.
Another area that many fans have voiced concerns about is that there is no manufacturer identity in the Cup COT's and NASCAR has remedied this by allowing specific brand identifiable features on the noses of the new car. Dodge will race its Challenger, Toyota its Camry, Ford will run the Mustang, and Chevrolet its Impala. Each car will feature traits that will make it recognizable to the fans, instead of the cookie cutter cars currently in use in the Cup series.
However, the fact that NASCAR has learned from their mistakes and are implementing new features into the Nationwide series raises another question.
Why not debut the car first in Nationwide, go through the learning curve and then once all the kinks have been worked out, introduce the COT in their premier series, Cup? It would seem that NASCAR has been backward in their thinking.
Regardless, there are several cool new features in the Nationwide version, such as the manufacturer identity. Will there ever be a crossover between the Nationwide and Cup versions of the COT and will NASCAR ever incorporate these features into the Cup series?
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