 | | Jeff Burton is getting the feel for the Car of Tomorrow after two test sessions. Credit: Autostock |
By David Newton, NASCAR.COM
May 30, 2006
07:10 PM EDT (23:10 GMT)
CONCORD, N.C. -- NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow, with its boxy design, front-end splitter and new-fangled rear wing, is getting closer to being the Car of Today. "My first thought is this is going to be fine,'' Jeff Burton said after Tuesday's test at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "It's not like I stepped out of something Sunday night and then came over here and got into a foreign ship. "It just feels like a car. That's real encouraging.'' Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition, said the car is close to the design that will be introduced next spring at Bristol Motor Speedway. "It's pretty close,'' he said. "The manufacturers are still working on the final pieces of their nose submissions. We're still working on different packages for the back of the car.'' Pemberton was encouraged that the cars ran well in traffic, which wasn't the case at an earlier test in Atlanta. Ryan Newman, one of eight drivers to test, said he could pass easier in the COT than he could in Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at LMS. "It drove good,'' said Newman, who made the on-track debut in the COT for Penske Racing South. "It's not aesthetically pleasing to me, but we've got something to work with.'' Casey Mears agreed. "It's a good car,'' he said. "I don't feel like it's much off of what we ran this weekend. The rear of the car feels a good bit more stable than what I had this weekend.'' Burton was encouraged with his initial laps of 30.40 seconds, which would not have made the 600 field -- 29.696 seconds qualified 43rd -- but would have been competitive in a race setup. He said the number of teams testing is an indication NASCAR is getting serious with plans for the car. "A lot of people just believed it wasn't going to happen,'' he said. "A lot of the people were under the impression that NASCAR was going to not do it and they were going to complain a lot about it and complain about how much it was going to cost and NASCAR was going to change their mind. "NASCAR has been pretty strong-willed about it and to their credit they said, 'Hey we're going to move this project forward and they have done it.' Now the reality has set in that this is going to happen.''' Ford teams skipped the test, waiting for NASCAR to deliver a more definitive plan for the design before putting more money and effort into it. Pemberton wasn't concerned, noting Roush Racing owner Jack Roush has been behind the project from the outset and plans to be at the next test in Michigan. Lee White, the senior vice president for Toyota Racing, said the foreign manufacturer had hoped to be at LMS. "Like the Ford teams, we are a little behind,'' he said. The biggest complaint about the car remained the boxy look, but that doesn't mean all the questions are answered. As Burton reminded, the COT won't be used at 1.5-mile tracks such as LMS until 2009, although Pemberton said that could move up a year if enough teams say they're ready. "If we leave here thinking we've got it all figured out, we're morons,'' Burton said. "We are two years away and if we think we can come here in one afternoon and confirm all our suspicions and concerns, we're wrong. "Until you have 43 out there at the same time, it's not the same. You can simulate with 10 cars all you want, but until you have 43 cars out there and a $400,000 purse and 180 points and a big trophy, you just can't simulate that.'' | 
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