Smaller teams discovering salvation comes at a price

At Haas CNC Racing, a two-car team trying to keep up with the big boys of Nextel Cup, they're working overtime on the Car of Tomorrow. Eighteen new people were hired to help the organization build and maintain its stable of 20 vehicles. And then there are the costs, which only escalate when integrating one car while racing another.

"From the financial side," said Joe Custer, the team's general manager, "we're spending more money than ever."

The Car of Tomorrow, which debuts this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, is supposed to be the great salvation for lower- and middle-tier Nextel Cup operations that struggle to compete with the sport's goliaths. Creating a vehicle that can be altered to fit several racetracks cuts down on specialization, reduces the total number of cars needed, reduces costs and eventually helps a Petty Enterprises run side-by-side with a Hendrick Motorsports.

That's the idea, anyway. The reality, at least right now, is that even smaller teams are facing huge expenses attempting to phase-in a COT that will be used 16 times this season before being fully implemented in 2008 or 2009. On paper, the fact that everyone is starting over with an unknown levels the playing field for smaller teams. But that doesn't mean the game is any less expensive to play.

"When you run two parallel programs, trying to run the current, existing body on the mile-and-a-half tracks and then going to the Car of Tomorrow, there's going to be quite the expense," said Petty Enterprises vice president Robbie Loomis. "... It's going to be costly in the beginning, but I think in the end we're going to take and move that money in other areas and still use a lot of money to make it happen."

From a technology standpoint, smaller teams play a constant game of read and react. On-track breakthroughs are typically made by larger organizations with more manpower, resources and money, placing smaller operations at a distinct disadvantage in terms of performance. To NASCAR, elements like the COT's rear wing and front splitter make the vehicle itself more adjustable, thereby theoretically negating any edge held by a larger team.

"Where the current car has progressed is to very specialized cars for each and every racetrack that we go to. Whether it's economically or even technically, keeping up to those changes is very difficult for smaller organizations," Nextel Cup director John Darby said. "One of the things that's so evident about the technical aspects of the new car is, there are so many of those specialized features that haven't been eliminated, but as a whole taken into a summary and then locked in so you don't have to constantly chase those components from track to track to track." (Continued)