 | | The Hendrick Car of Tomorrow gets some attention during testing at Michigan. Credit: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images |
By Ryan Smithson, NASCAR.COM
December 13, 2006
10:51 AM EST (15:51 GMT)
Steve Letarte returned Tuesday from a brief vacation in Aruba to find 200 unread e-mails. "I need a vacation from my vacation," Letarte said. "My three-year-old had me on the beach 14 hours a day." Maybe his son didn't realize how quickly the offseason was slipping away. Letarte has work to do, but not all of it involves new styles of race cars.  |  | | Steve Letarte says Hendrick Motorsports has five Cars of Tomorrow ready for the 2007 season. Credit: Autostock |
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Letarte, crew chief for Jeff Gordon, somehow found a way to grab four precious days in the sun-soaked Caribbean. It was a brief respite from the looming problem of getting prepared to fight NASCAR's version of a two-front war. A war involving two completely different kinds of cars. Letarte could afford to spend a day going through a couple hundred e-mails, mainly because Gordon's Daytona 500 car lacks only a paint job. Gordon's team, Hendrick Motorsports, has already started the final touches on its fleet of Cars of Tomorrow, which debut at Bristol on March 25. "We built our Daytona 500 cars back in October, so they are done," Letarte said. "Our off-season hasn't been affected a lot [by COT preparation], but that is because we prepared months ahead of time. "Our speedway cars are done. We are working on Car of Tomorrows. Right now, my two Bristol cars and [Chad Knaus'] two Bristol cars are in the fab shop." |
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NASCAR plans to use its Car of Tomorrow -- a wider, taller chassis designed to lower costs and enhance safety -- at 16 races in 2007. Because the new car is being phased in over the course of three seasons, one might think that teams are straining to get the COTs ready during the short offseason. That is hardly the case. Despite the strong reaction to the Car of Tomorrow -- teams and drivers have hardly given it rave reviews -- crew chiefs and team managers are starting to worry less and less about the new design's debut. In short, teams have other pressing matters that pop up as soon as the season ends. Letarte has spent a majority of his December dealing with internal matters. After the season ended in Homestead last month, he immediately morphed from crew chief to team manager. The Car of Tomorrow was just one of many things he had to get done before testing begins at Daytona next month. Teams typically spend December going over which employees need contract extensions and supervising pit crews' offseason regimes. "I got meetings today at noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.," Letarte said. "I have 85 employees to review between myself and Chad." Mike Dillon, Director of Team Operations for Richard Childress Racing, feels the same internal pressures. Dillon is naturally concerned about getting his three-car team prepared for the COT's debut, but he has also spent a significant amount of time making sure his best employees aren't snapped up by rival organizations. Dillon says that 2007 will be a key year for Toyota, and he plans on spending the offseason making sure his key personnel staying within the RCR walls. "We have some teams coming around with a lot of money right now," Dillon said. "[The new teams] are getting what they can get now. They are going to better themselves, in 2008, they will make their teams stronger and talk to [rival teams] while they are at the track. "We will have to deal with that the next couple of years. We will always have to deal with that." Dillon was initially gravely concerned that the Car of Tomorrow was going to cut into his time during the brief offseason, but concerns over the car have eased somewhat, although growing pains still remain. RCR, like almost every team on the Nextel Cup circuit, have had problems getting the new COT to fit NASCAR's updated templates. Dillon says that the team is finally starting to solve the inspection issue, but the team will have to burn through the winter to get its fleet ready for 2007. "The main thing right now the issue is just getting chassis inspected. We don't even have race cars that you can race," Dillon said. "It was no one's fault but ours, I guess, as far as not passing inspection. "Trying to manage two different style cars for 2007 is a challenge." Reiser: Teams can't lose sight of 2006 model Matt Kenseth's success on the high-banked speedways in 2006 was the main reason he was able to challenge Jimmie Johnson for the Nextel Cup title, and crew chief Robbie Reiser has spent most of the month making sure that advantage isn't lost. |  | | Robbie Reiser says teams can't focus on their COT programs and ignore the current chasis configuration. Credit: Autostock |
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NASCAR's current body style remains in effect for 1.5-mile tracks for the 2007 and 2008 seasons, making next month's open test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway critical. Reiser, like Letarte, already has his primary and backup Daytona 500 cars completed -- "The engines are in them," he said -- and he seems determined to make sure Kenseth has a shot of making it to the Chase for the fourth straight year. Reiser plans to take eight days off around Christmas, but until then, he is devoted to working on this year's body style. He said he will ramp up Car of Tomorrow preparation in January. Like Letarte, he will test the COT at Lakeland in January. "We have worked on speedway cars and worked on cars for the Vegas test," Reiser said. "Last night we were in the wind tunnel until 4 in the morning, [and] we got another car going on Thursday." Successful seasons help COT changeover Letarte said that teams that enjoyed successful seasons in 2006 -- like Hendrick -- will naturally be ahead of the COT game. With Hendrick easily placing three of its drivers in the Chase, the team was able to allocate a half-dozen employees to work on the COT a full six months before the debut. "It is the offseason, we have not had to do a body changeover, and we are on the same Monte Carlo, so that helps quite a bit," Letarte said. "As a company, we have done a good job expecting that the Car of Tomorrow was coming. "We started ahead of time. While the crew chiefs were racing, there are 6-8 key people here at the company who didn't close their eyes to the Car of Tomorrow." Dillon noted that Richard Childress Racing's COT learning curve was reduced after drivers Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer enjoyed solid seasons. Still, the change to the COT threw the team a curve, but not one that the team isn't used to. NASCAR's constant rules changes and ever-changing body styles have hardened the veteran teams. "The offseason is always the hardest time of the year," Dillon said. "For some reason, rules changes or something always seems to mess up our year. This year would have been easy for us because we didn't have a lot of stuff tore up." Reiser said that he would have built new cars anyway and will simply add the COTs to the rotation of cars to be built. "It really hasn't [affected us much] because with the 16 races, [the COT] ends up just being another group of cars," Reiser said. "When you're all said and done, we'll have 15 cars and six or seven will be COTs." Offseason a chance for pit crews to tone up, rehabilitate The grueling 38-week season takes its tool on over-the-wall pit crews, and Letarte uses December to give his guys a moderate break. His seven-man pit crew spends the month working out with light weights and rehabbing nagging injuries. Hendrick Motorsports routinely uses outside specialists to augment its army of in-shop trainers. Their main job is ensuring pit crews are completely healthy before the season-opening Budweiser Shootout. "They won't pit practice in December," Letarte said. "They will go to the gym but they won't pit practice. 38 weeks is so hard on knees and ankles. In the gym they are really not lifting, they are stretching and getting rehabilitation." Reiser, whose team boasts one of the best pit crews on tour, still has his men going over the wall at the team's shops, albeit on a smaller scale. "Actually, we practice twice a week [to] keep everyone on the fresh side," Reiser said. "We don't practice like we do during the year. Just enough to keep everyone motivated and in shape." | 
