Better handle on COT has Berrier ready for Phoenix

Phoenix International Raceway has been very good to Kevin Harvick. The California native and Richard Childress Racing driver has competed on the 1-mile track in a variety of different series, sweeping both Nextel Cup events there last year. Calling the shots for both of those victories was crew chief Todd Berrier, who switched to RCR's No. 29 team in 2003. The 37-year-old Kernersville, N.C., native has won 11 races with Harvick, including the Brickyard 400 in 2003 and the Daytona 500 this year.

As Berrier will admit, it's been a tough year for the men who set up cars on NASCAR's premier series. Sunday's race in Phoenix will be the last this season for the Car of Tomorrow, which becomes the standard chassis on what will be called the Sprint Cup Series in 2008. Berrier took a few minutes before last week's race at Texas to talk about going back to the desert and trying to get a handle on the COT.

Q: You guys swept the two races in Phoenix last season, and finished 10th there in the spring. What's the confidence level like going back?

Berrier: The past success does help. Success with Kevin, and [RCR teammate] Clint [Bowyer] winning Loudon -- a lot of those things are similar. A lot of things help. So going there you feel like you have a little bit of an edge compared to some of the other places that you go.

Q: You're going from a night spring race to an afternoon fall race. Does the track change?

Berrier: It's not a lot of change. The biggest thing is, we're running the Car of Tomorrow there, and since we ran it the first time, it was so early in the season, there have been a lot of things that we feel we've learned and gotten better at over the last couple of months. So there will be several things different on our side than there were the last time we were there. So it's probably more of a car change and us getting smarter and a lot of things changing in our setups. So you'll have to fight that a little bit when you get there, just trying to get that in tune with the track.

Q: Do you have a better handle on COT than you did for the spring race?

Berrier: I think we do have a better handle on it than we did in the spring. I think we were really good in the spring. You keep working hard and you make changes and you think you get smarter and smarter. I think we are better, but we could also leave there thinking, 'Man, we should have left it the way we were in the first race.' But I feel like we've gotten a fair amount better with the car. Having tires to test with is something we don't have now, so you've just got to go from race to race and do your development from one race to the next. A year ago, we would have had tires to go to Iowa or Milwaukee or places like that to get ready for Phoenix. This year, it's just a little bit different.

Q: You mentioned changes in the car. How much has it changed?

Berrier: The car itself, as far as the tech side of it and the NASCAR side of it, hasn't changed that much. In the area of the front clip, the front geometry that we're allowed to work with, a lot of that stuff is different. We'll have a whole new spindle package, the clip will be at the different height. It will be a lot different than it was there before. And a really big change isn't really going to equate to a lot. It's not like it's going to be a half a second quicker. It's just a little bit of something the driver feels, but it makes big changes when we get there. (Continued)