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."

In NASCAR parlance, it's known as a smaller technical "box," limiting the amount of leeway teams have in making adjustments to the car. That much was obvious in the recent COT test at Bristol, where every organization struggled to get through inspection. Those limitations, Loomis believes, can help give Petty Enterprises a chance.

"When you're a smaller organization, a lot of time you're chasing what the bigger teams are doing. They're able to react and respond to things quicker, and make changes quicker to the body and offset the roofs and do different things. Whereas in a smaller team, it seems like you're always one step behind what the latest, greatest thing is. Now, they've drawn a little bit of a tighter box around a lot of areas."

Car of Tomorrow

• Cost Management
• Driver Safety
• Improved Competition
• A New Era

But getting there isn't cheap. Richard Childress, who operates a three-car team, estimated earlier this year that the COT program is costing each Nextel Cup organization an additional $1.6 to $1.8 million. Those numbers are expected to increase as NASCAR makes changes to the car after its initial runs at Bristol and next week at Martinsville Speedway. And they make some wonder if the COT is indeed the great equalizer some believe it to be.

"I think the teams that feel good about it are the ones that are probably not winning right now, because they think this car is going to bring them into a box that's going to keep costs down and also maybe get the competition a little bit closer. I hope all those things are true. But I still think the top teams are going to be the ones that come out on top," Jeff Gordon said.

"The teams that are excited about this car because they think it is going to bring them closer to the front, I think they are going to be surprised about how much more engineering you are actually going to need with this car. The smaller the box they put you in, the more work that it takes to figure out how to find that speed that you need."

Tony Stewart agreed: "You still have technology involved," he said. "And as long as you have technology and engineers and wind tunnels and seven-post shake rigs and all this, there's somebody that is going to find an advantage over somebody else. As long as there is that advantage, you're never going to keep everybody real close together."

Results from the recent COT test at Bristol were inconclusive. Drivers from large, multi-car powers dominated the first two sessions. But in the final session, Ward Burton of Morgan-McClure Motorsports, Jeff Green of Haas CNC Racing and Tony Raines of Hall of Fame Racing all cracked the top 10.

"All the systems that are in place have been developed for this one package," Custer said. "Everybody is on an equal playing field from all that. It's not just the knowledge, it's the equipment and the systems are all at a ground level. We know that will benefit us. We'd rather take the new package and build on it, rather than take the car of today and try to get to the same place."

Darby admits that teams are spending "a substantial amount of money" to develop the COT, but believes those same operations will see savings in the future by using one car at multiple tracks. Custer wonders if that's the case -- even when the COT is fully implemented, he said, Haas CNC's car count will drop from 20 to about only 16. He also believes he COT is more fragile than the current car, leading to questions over how often one can be used.

"There's the potential for these cars to be fragile. In other words, when we wreck them, we won't repair them as easily as the existing cars. So it appears we're going to see more chassis. Are they cheaper to build? It appears they're cheaper to build per chassis, but if you're building more of them, that savings goes somewhere else," Custer said.

"We may need fewer cars, but if we total them more frequently, we're building more cars. They may be cheaper to build, but we're building more of them. When will all that settle out? I'm not sure. There may be a gain financially, but I'm not counting on the gain. I'm counting on it costing more."