NASCAR claims one advantage of the Car of Tomorow is that all parts are in the same place. Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Nelson not worried about Car of Tomorrow critics

Project leader, NASCAR consultant says teams will come around

A year and a half ago, Gary Nelson sat in a meeting room at the NASCAR Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C., and one-by-one asked Nextel Cup team owners the same question:

"How many cars do you build in one year?"

Gary Nelson said he believes teams will change their opinions on the Car of Tomorrow. Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Car of Tomorrow Timeline 2007 Date Track 3/25 Bristol 4/1 Martinsville 4/21 Phoenix 5/5 Richmond 5/12 Darlington 6/3 Dover 6/24 Infineon 7/1 New Hampshire 8/12 Watkins Glen 8/25 Bristol 9/8 Richmond 9/16 New Hampshire 9/23 Dover 10/7 Talladega 10/21 Martinsville 11/11 Phoenix 2008 Date Track TBA Daytona (2) TBA California (2) TBA Talladega (spring) TBA Pocono (2) TBA Michigan (2) TBA Indianapolis 2009 Date Track TBA Atlanta (2) TBA Lowes (2) TBA Texas (2) TBA Chicagoland TBA Kansas TBA Las Vegas TBA Homestead ACCELERATING THE TIMELINE The phasing-in of the Car of Tomorrow may be a faster process than advertised if all goes well, according to NASCAR consultant Gary Nelson.  "We feel like we've done the testing and feel comfortable that the schedule in 2007 will give us and everyone the confidence to move forward in the future," Nelson said.  The Car of Tomorrow, which will debut at Bristol in March, is currently scheduled to run in 16 races this season, 26 events in 2008 and the entire 2009 season.  Accelerating the schedule without complete support from the teams, Nelson said, would be dangerous from a financial standpoint.  "We left room to shorten the schedule, but we wanted it to make economical sense," said Nelson, admitting he is confident once teams adjust to the machine they will want to move quickly. "We feel like by the end of '07, teams will want to speed up the process."

As expected, most fell between 12 and 15 racecars. But each car owner that Nelson spoke to rebutted with the same line: When the Car of Tomorrow debuts, each team will need a fleet of COTs and a fleet of regular cars in order to be prepared for the different tracks on the schedule.

"I told them to go back and tell me what they'd do different on the Car of Tomorrow for the different tracks," said Nelson, who at the time was NASCAR's vice president of research and development.

The owners returned to their shops, tinkered a little and called Nelson back.

"I asked them what they did, and they all said, 'Nothing -- there's nothing to change.'" Nelson said.

He smiled and knew he had won the first battle.

Before branching out on his own to start his safety performance consulting company, Nelson spent the last 15 years working for NASCAR in a research and development capacity. He worked in inspections for 10 years before heading the R&D Center project in 2000 and later being named NASCAR's vice president of research and development.

And now, everyone else is asking him the questions.

Nelson oversaw the Car of Tomorrow project and although he no longer works for NASCAR, he's directly involved in the decision-making as the machine nears its debut at Bristol in March.

"I attend meetings and am involved in conversations on a daily basis and on a variety of topics -- the Car of Tomorrow is the most common subject," said Nelson, admitting NASCAR is the No. 1 client for his consulting business. "I couldn't hire someone and give them 35 years of experience right away."

His knowledge of the Car of Tomorrow, which he says will eventually be called a spec car, may be greater than anyone. So is his patience.

When the Car of Tomorrow was introduced, it was met with a truckload of critics. It's too boxy, they said. It's a regression in technology. The changes can be made to the current cars. Today, the arguments have grown to include budget concerns, timeline issues and downright ugliness.

But there's one argument that'll never hold merit in Nelson's eyes.

"Whatever argument people use, they can't argue the safety side of it," Nelson said. "I sleep at night because we know this is a safer car."

Safety features on the car include moving the driver's seat four inches toward the center of the car and a roll cage that is moved three inches to the rear of the machine. The car is also two inches taller and four inches wider.

All of those are reasons the Car of Tomorrow will be on the track in 2007, Nelson said.

The on-track deaths of Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper and Dale Earnhardt within a year thrust the issue of safety to the forefront of NASCAR's concerns in 2001.

"Brian France decided we could do better at safety and started hiring people to begin the R&D Center," Nelson said. "In Brian's mind, the car sounded like the first place to start."

But the focus was smaller steps first.

Nelson helped guide research on safety restraints and seatbelts first, something that he said hadn't been done since the 1960s. The result was an overhauling of NASCAR's safety restraint rules and making a head and neck restraint mandatory.

The Car of Tomorrow's wing has been a controversial piece on the machine. Credit: Turner Sports New Media

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Next were walls and barriers, a much bigger project than anyone anticipated. Nelson said his group crashed 19 full-size cars during test sessions before the SAFER barriers were developed at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska. Now each track on the schedule has them.

Third on the list was the car.

"We take the shots from people who don't realize we've put five years of testing and engineering into the research," Nelson said. "We sit quietly and take the comments and abuse. But the fact is the car on the track today is 27 years old.

"The car we run now was last updated in 1980. The body styles have changed, but the basic chassis was 21 years old at the time [the COT project began]. There have been several technological advances over the years. So we decided to start from a new foundation and went from there."

The first look at revamping the car started with the engine. France went to Nelson asking him to research ways to drop engine costs. The result was the spec engine, which is now run in the Busch Grand National East and West series.

Once the project began to develop, NASCAR brought in owners, drivers and crew chiefs to witness tests -- test that were often unsuccessful.

"We failed at a lot of the tests, but the reason you test is to determine the answer," Nelson said. "If you look at a list of things we tried that did not work, it would be many times longer than the things we tried that did work."

True to Nelson's statement, safety isn't a concern of the COT's critics. It's been everything else.

Jeff Gordon says it doesn't look like a stock car.

Penske's president Don Miller says it's "butt ugly."

Jimmie Johnson says it's more aerodynamically dependant than anyone expected.

Tony Stewart, who has made himself scarce when COT tests have been scheduled, says it was tough preparing for 2007 when half the season will be run in regular racecars (20 races) and the other will be run in COTs (16).

Because parts are in the same place, the Car of Tomorrow is less likely to be subject to spy photos. Credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

SPYING ON THE OTHERS While many Car of Tomorrow critics say phasing-in the spec machine isn't economically smart for smaller teams, NASCAR consultant Gary Nelson said there's specifically one way it will save teams money -- on photographers.  "A lot of money that teams spend goes for spy photos," Nelson said, although he could not confirm a dollar figure. "A good spy shot is over the car and has the car directly centered. Teams used to use pit stop cameras to get a video of the cars as they drove through another stall into their pits. But the observation deck at the Brickyard brings it all out."  Indianapolis is the popular place for spy photos because of the garage setup where photographers can take a direct shot from above racecars as they transition from the garage to the track.  Nelson said the spy photos are expensive because of the high-quality cameras needed to capture accurate shots. Once the photographs are taken, they are measured so that teams can go and replicate the car within those same parameters.  The Car of Tomorrow, Nelson said, will end that practice.  "Spy photos will probably stop because every car is going to be the same," he said. "Every part is in the same place."

"Guys who have recently won championships and been successful on the track, from a competition standpoint if I was beating everybody I wouldn't want change either," Nelson admitted. "But the ones to listen to are the ones who haven't had recent success. What they're saying usually is less affected by their desire to keep things the same."

Now that the project is in its final stages, the issue is money.

"I haven't seen anything that we've changed lately that's saved us money," Larry McClure, co-owner of Morgan-McClure Motorsports, told NASCAR.COM.

"I would have to argue that," Nelson said, noting the trend of teams expanding their fleets over the past decade.

NASCAR's take is that the COT will save teams money primarily because smaller teams won't have to build specialized cars for different tracks. Nelson said 10 years ago the norm was to have a dozen cars in a team's stable. Today, that number is 18 with only 23 tracks on the schedule, but in 2008 or 2009 that won't be enough.

The playing field becomes leveled by allowing large- and small-budget teams to work from the same blueprint, Nelson said.

Today's rulebook for a car is more like a parameter in that teams must build their cars within a specific box. It is most easily recognized at aero-dependent tracks where cars appear twisted -- the deck will be slanted in a different direction than the roof.

The Car of Tomorrow rulebook is more concrete -- a roll bar will be welded at the same place on every racecar, whereas on today's cars it can vary. And a short track car will virtually be the same as a team's superspeedway car.

Having the same blueprint will end a longtime practice of teams paying big-time money for spy photos to try and emulate the body styles of successful competitors (see box).

"We did research at every track," Nelson said. "A team may choose to have 18 or even 30 cars, but another guy who can't afford that can be as competitive because there are no purpose-built cars for Martinsville or New Hampshire or Richmond. You don't need a bigger shop because you don't need more stuff."

Richard Childress may argue that.

Todd Berrier, crew chief for Kevin Harvick, told NASCAR.COM in October that RCR has added 90,000 square feet of workspace and 50 employees just to prepare for the COT's debut in 2007. He added that after the three-year phasing-in of the machine, he's not sure what the team will do with its extra employees.

Nelson said there will always be a counter argument.

"People are reluctant to change," he said. "I had to argue with a lot of drivers to get them to use the head and neck restraint, and I did because I knew it was safer to use it. So I didn't mind that argument. It's the same with this car."

But this time, he's not arguing. He's simply waiting.

"It's not easy convincing people this is the way to go," he said. "We'll sit back and wait for them to have their final opinion."