CoT dropped?

[kelvin88]

Just read this in Short Circuit magazine, January issue (after dragging myself off the page with me on it! )


"A source close to NASCAR hinted that plans for the Car of Tomorrow scheduled to debut in the spring of 2007 at Bristol could be scrapped with the governing body not happy with on track performance and the opportunity of close racing they were hoping for with the new body and chassis design. Time will tell if they follow through with the plans, but if the talk is true a decision will have to come soon."

Has anyone else heard this? Does anyone know if its true?

[1200Datto27]

If it's true, there will be a number of upset people who have built and tested cars, and now they have no value.

[Fish_Flake]

This is the first time I've heard such a rumor. NASCAR has spent years developing the Car of Tomorrow, and it would make no sense for them to cancel it at this point. That being said, I'd understand if NASCAR decided wanted to postpone the inaugural event for the CoT to Richmond in May. Bristol is a track notorious for its attrition, and Martinsville (also a CoT-designated track) comes immediately afterward. It's a safe bet that twenty cars are going to need major repairs after the race, and asking the teams to prepare so quickly while still getting accustomed to the new machinery under the circumstances might be a little too much to ask of them.

[James63]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?...v=st&type=lgns

Doesn't seem likely.

[AU N EGL]

Originally Posted by kelvin88

Just read this in Short Circuit magazine, January issue (after dragging myself off the page with me on it! )


"A source close to NASCAR hinted that plans for the Car of Tomorrow scheduled to debut in the spring of 2007 at Bristol could be scrapped with the governing body not happy with on track performance and the opportunity of close racing they were hoping for with the new body and chassis design. Time will tell if they follow through with the plans, but if the talk is true a decision will have to come soon."

Has anyone else heard this? Does anyone know if its true?

Turns out the Car of Tomarrow is TOO FAST and too stable at high speeds. WOW who would have thought that by adding aerodynamic aids a race car would be stable at high speeds.

40 year old concept FINNALLY COMES to NASCAR

[EuropaBambaataa]

Originally Posted by AU N EGL

Turns out the Car of Tomarrow is TOO FAST and too stable at high speeds. WOW who would have thought that by adding aerodynamic aids a race car would be stable at high speeds.

40 year old concept FINNALLY COMES to NASCAR

What next? Are they going to find out fuel injection saves fuel and raises power?

Seriously, though, I love NASCAR as much as the next European guy who loves NASCAR, but somebody in Florida needs to look out the window and smell modern civilization. The CoT is kind of ugly, but I was surprised when I saw it had a rear wing, and thought "wait, they're adding downforce and introducing an element teams can have more freedom setting up?"

[Knowlesy]

It's all incredibly daft isn't it? Despite the supposed safety improvements...

Still, these rumours have to be unlikely....it would be a disaster for NASCAR PR-wise to spend years developing a car and then scrapping it!

[StuiE]

I think NASCAR take a kind of 'if you don't like it, we don't care' attitude, eventually everyone will accept it, No-one liked North Wilkesboro or Rockingham being dropped, but everyone still watches Nascar. I don't think it will be dropped..

I don't think the new aero package added all that much/if any downforce actually, but it will make the cars better to drive (apparantly) when following another car, maybe it makes the 'dirty air' from the back of a car 'cleaner'?


and for what it's worth, I like the 'low tech' aspect of Nascar, though I'd call it more 'old style' or something, as the amount of development that goes into seemingly simple things is amazing.


also, F1 is a bad example of cars with aero and are very driveable, it's boring basically. Simple stuff with lots of power is a good formula IMO.

[lookleft]

Maybe the quote is just about dropping the 16 races for this season. Does seem a little daft to swap and change the cars throughout the season.

CoT all the way in 2008.

[kingfloopy]

I agree that it's a mistake to have a split season this year, it seems stupid to have teams build two sets of expensive chassis to run the season. The only benefit would be if the CoT was a failure and then at least the entire season wouldn't be a loss.

I think it was a mistake to introduce it all together. It seems to me to be another way to put the smaller teams out of business in favor of the large multi-car teams with big name drivers. Are the little guys like Morgan Shepherd and Kirk Shelmerdine going to be able to buy the CoT right away? They'll also be saddled with useless current generation chassis after this season, granted all teams will, but it will hurt the smaller teams the most. NASCAR may claim improved competition, but it all comes by eliminating the have-nots and guys that are out there purely because they love it rather than making tons of money. In turn it makes NASCAR look better because they have a tighter pack of cars. They also end up with drivers and teams who are more marketable that they can use.

It may sound like some paranoid conspiracy, but the top-35 points deal seems to have the same effect, to reduce the number of smaller single car and independent teams that are running in Nextel Cup. With that rule there are full-time teams with sponsor dollars that can't make races anymore. It seems to be a pretty sad trend and it will ultimately cause the loss of some fans (NASCAR viewership has already started to drop).

J.D.

[gttouring]

NASCar viewrship drops relatively...
they will have a huge fan base, still do- attempting to overtake NFL is alot to ask for any where. It is like the Priemership, or AusRL, to take a back seat to F1, i don't see it happening. But NASCAR should be glad to be able to flirt with #1 status every weekend.
Getting 100,000- 250,000 people every race weekend at the tracks, is something many sancitoning bodies would love to have and let it slip to a few thousand less and rise up again next week.
Nothing can be constant they should understand and accept the ebb and flow, as long as the water level is high its good.
stupid France's are ruining nascar now- put it lik your dad had it you ninny

[muggle not]

Stewart Calls New Car "Basket of Junk"
Two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart is one of several drivers who have been openly critical of the new cars. On his radio show on the SIRIUS Satellite Network, Stewart said he finally drove one of the COTs at Lakeland, Fla., and was far from impressed. -- "Oh, what a basket of junk," Stewart said. "It drives like a station wagon, an old station wagon, like an old Oldsmobile station wagon, green with wood panel trim on the sides," he added. "Granted, I know we were on harder tires than what they would run there but, boy, it didn't feel good. You know, it's like anything else, though. I'm sure the more we'll run it, the better we'll get the setups and all that." NASCAR currently is certifying the chassis for the new cars and many Cup teams haven't even started to put the bodies on most of their COTs. That means there are still plenty of unknowns remaining. ...Daily Headlines

[AU N EGL]

Rember NASCAR teams dont use ONE car for the whole season. They several different configurations.

Super Speedway- 1.5 to 2.5 miles : , Daytona, Telledaga, Darlington
Speedway - 1 to 1.5 miles
Short track - up to 1 mile
Road race,

[chemhead1]

Originally Posted by AU N EGL

Rember NASCAR teams dont use ONE car for the whole season. They several different configurations.

Super Speedway- 1.5 to 2.5 miles : , Daytona, Telledaga, Darlington
Speedway - 1 to 1.5 miles
Short track - up to 1 mile
Road race,

Well, it's probably separated more like this:

- Restrictor Plate (2.5+mi High Banked): Daytona/Talladega (I'd estimate about 2-3 per large budget team, seeing that they bring quite A and B cars to preseason testing.)

- Super Speedway (1.5mi-2/2.5mi): Michigan/Fontana/Indy. (~3 cars/large budget team?)

- Speedway (~1mi-1.5mi): Dover/Phoenix to Lowes/Texas/Homestead, etc. Richmond, possibly. (These take the majority of the schedule, so somewhere around 5+ cars for a large budget team)

- Short Track (Below 1mi): Martinsville/Bristol. (1 dedicated car for each track + a spare would be about 3 cars for a large team)

- Road Course: W. Glen/Infineon (1 car + 1 backup. An example of this was for the 2005 or 2006 Infineon race, they mentioned during the broadcast that Matt Kenseth was not happy with the car they brought to Infineon so they had another one they had tested out at VIR ready for him to use instead.)

It's more than safe to say that a pretty competitive team that isn't exactly having money woes can easily have a car count in the double digits, and this is just one team, not one racing organization. Let's not even get into the "car sharing" that multi-car organizations possibly do.

[Hazza]

Yeah, but if a driver gets in the groove with one car they'll stick to that and have a backup car, but then I guess you need a back up back up if you put one into the wall in between races.

So i'd say 3 min for a Speedway car for a decent team if is all going well.

[chemhead1]

Originally Posted by Hazza

Yeah, but if a driver gets in the groove with one car they'll stick to that and have a backup car, but then I guess you need a back up back up if you put one into the wall in between races.

So i'd say 3 min for a Speedway car for a decent team if is all going well.

Good point, Kasey Kahne did that last season, he had one car that stood out from the other cars in the shop and he used it to run at almost all the 1.5mi speedways, at least in the first half of the season. Won 2 or 3 races with that one car.

But suffice to say, yeah, they'll bring a backup regardless, so that's 2 cars right there. But of course it's just a backup and they're not going to plan to run all the tracks with the spare. So then, as you said 3. But then there are also teams who regularly participate in tire testing, so they probably wouldn't want to waste an actual race-prepped car as a precaution to any mindlapses causing a wreck (or of course, the occasional tire failure (and with the tire situation these days, it's a very real possibility)) during a test.

But yeah, at the very least 3 if you're planning on a competitive season. I won't even start with all the experimentation in some shops these days.

[AU N EGL]

Exactly. Not just one car for the whole season.

[tokar48]

Was just reading that the cot testing at Bristol was open to the public. This article was printed on 1-31.Seems to be an indication that the cot program is still on course.

[chemhead1]

Originally Posted by tokar48

Was just reading that the cot testing at Bristol was open to the public. This article was printed on 1-31.Seems to be an indication that the cot program is still on course.

Well, of course it the CoT is still going on no matter what. It's been mentioned earlier on here that NASCAR didn't put millions and millions of dollars and 7 long years of development just to say "Whoops, we 'effed' up" and dump the CoT. I think NASCAR would rather let it go on than to admit that somewhere along the line of developing the CoT, they made a mistake. Money before pride in this case.

But not totally bashing NASCAR, think about this. NASCAR is already on *relatively* shaky ground with it's fanbase, with the lower TV ratings and whatnot. Whether or not that's just natural fluctuation over the years or not is yet to be seen, but one thing that would only make matters horribly worse is to have NASCAR, after all the promotions, tests, announcements, and everything else with the CoT, come out and drop the program. This would undoubtedly cause fans to lose faith and trust in a series that has been happy to mention every moment they can that they're one of the biggest, if not the biggest sport in the U.S.

There was somewhat similar talk like this about the "common template" cars in 2003, where the generic shape of the car was somewhere about the average shape of the then Taurus. The Dodges already looked like them from the start, so that was no problem. However, it was the Chevys and Pontiacs (albeit '03 being their last season) that drastically changed. Fans hated it because of the idea of making the series more like a 1-make championship (or "IROC'ing the series" as a friend told me once), and some drivers felt a change in the handling. It was generally unpopular, but we moved on from then and the common templates have gone on relatively well in the series.

The CoT's scenario is not that far off from the Common Templates, aside from the difference of changes made to the cars in '03 for the common templates and now for the CoT. The CoT is making a lot more changes, yes. But this time it's not necessarily about competition. NASCAR didn't necessarily learn a lesson, but they got a certain hint in their heads when it came to attempting to even up the field with the Common Templates, No engine changes for a weekend, Tire compound changes, and to a degree, the Chase for the Cup:

"Don't do it."

The hint is there for sure, they know it's there, but maybe they're so darned sure that after the mediocre results that came out of competition enhancers, when it comes to the CoT, the safety of the driver (which was the goal from day one of the CoT program) and the cost-cutting element (which was only the natural way to go) were both more important than making the racing closer. The splitter and rear wing, yes, they're supposed to make the racing closer and the cars handle better. But I think at the same time maybe NASCAR is starting to smart up about applying more modern technology from other motorsports into NASCAR.

I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing.

But consider these:

- Team sports: Sure, you can have a great team in your city and maybe win a championship in a span of a few years. But fans can get tired of seeing the same faces in a team year after year. Hire a new guy to the reserves, fans might show some interest, but not much. Hire a new star player, fans go nuts about the change. Some hate it, some love it, but it's grabbing attention.

- Champ Car: After many years of seeing the Lola chassis (especially seeing the Lola sans the SuperSpeedway package) race after race in CC, not only did the fans become bored after seeing the same old thing year after year, but the technology of the chassis started to become obsolete. The DP01 is bringing more attention to Champ Car. Again, some fans love it, and there are actually a small minority of fans (although I really haven't seen them voice their opinions as much, even on message boards) actually don't like the idea of a new car with a raised nose. But it's grabbing attention.

No matter what, there are 2 things certain about the CoT:

1) The CoT will race.
2) It'll grab attention.

[muggle not]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...s152246S30.DTL

Nascar wants the COT in full use by 2008.....................

[rustyfan]

Since the current testing at Bristol apparently has been pretty successful (with around 50 teams taking part) I think it would make sense to scrap the previous 3-year plan and go full time with the CoT in 2008 already.

I like this part from the link you posted muggle not:

"It actually drives better than our other cars do here," Earnhardt said. "It has exceeded my expectations at this point as to how the car is driving. I anticipated it to be a little more of a struggle. The racing (at Bristol) should be about exactly the same it has been."

Of course the first true test of how the racing will change won't come until they visit a longer track where the aerodynamics play a more important role than at a short track. Fontana/Michigan and Daytona/Talladega are the tracks I look forward to the most to see the CoT in action.

Also, Racingone.com has several images from the testing at Bristol, posted here.

[muggle not]

The teams are really struggling with the setup in the COT. It is entirely different from what they have now. The Bristol race will be a good test for them as there are always lots of banging and a few wrecks. Many teams are worried about what happens when the splitter on the car gets damaged, etc. The cars will get pretty banged up at the Bristol race and it will be real interesting to see how the cars handle after getting tore up some.

Some drivers are struggling and some like the car. I think it probably depends on which cars have "hit" on the better setup. Jeff Gordon had one of the best test times but he said he really struggled with turning the car.

[ss_collins]

I must say I dislike the CoT immensely - its ugly, not what NASCAR is about for me but, its good for copy.

[FIRE]

http://www.jayski.com/schemes/2006/C...onfrontCOT.jpg

I think the front splitter is easy damaged if there's contact with other cars.

[Speed-King]

The front-splitter will be well below an other cars rear bumper, so why should it be damaged?