Entering its final appearance of the season, Bobby Labonte gave a mostly positive review of the Car of Tomorrow, entering Sunday’s Checkers 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.
“I’ve always felt pretty good about the ‘Car of Tomorrow’ races,” Labonte, the 2000 Winston Cup champion. “We had a good jump on it (at the outset), and that helped. It’s a boxier car, it’s top-heavy and everyone has had that struggle of making it turn. It’s just not designed to do what the others cars do. That was probably the purpose.
“It’s tough because there’s such a small box to work in, especially when you’re trying to turn on a track like Phoenix. It’s tough on the mechanics and crew chiefs. The drivers are screaming to make it turn, but there’s only so much you can adjust. You just have to learn to race with it.” Monte Dutton, Gaston Gazette
The Car of Tomorrow is no longer a mystery.
Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway will be the 16th and final event of 2007 for the big, boxy CoT, which will be used for the entire 36-race schedule in 2008.
A lot has changed since the new cars first ran at Bristol in March, including the attitudes of most of the drivers. To say the least, few if any of the Cup drivers welcomed NASCAR’s developmental project.
The seven-year project by the folks at NASCAR’s research and development center in Concord, N.C., was intended to wind up with a safer, more competitive and more cost-effective car. So far, the safety aspect has been the only one of those that has proven out.
It has cost Cup teams considerably more this year to build both the CoT and the older car, and the level of competition in the first 15 CoT races - the ability to pass and get the cars balanced - has been inconclusive. USAToday.com
| 
|