Inspection process fine ... depending on point of view

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- John Darby seemed perfectly content, even outwardly pleased, with the inspection process for the first Car of Tomorrow race in Nextel Cup history.

The same couldn't be said for everyone who took part in the often tedious event on Thursday. It took some cars more than six hours from the time they got in line for the inspection until they received their approval stickers to take the cars onto the track in preparation for Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Once they reached the front of the line, the inspection process on average appeared to take at least twice as long as it normally does -- and sometimes twice more as long as that. Still, Darby said that none of this was unexpected and explained that this is why NASCAR set up inspections one day earlier than usual, a process that will be repeated next week in Martinsville. After that, Darby said that he expects the inspection process at the remaining 14 COT races this season to begin on the Friday before the race, as normally is the case.

"The race teams have done an outstanding job on preparing these cars for this race," said Darby, director of competition for the Nextel Cup Series. "Other than some very small and totally expected conversations and issues, everything has gone very well."

Darby pointed out that despite all the public and private debate regarding the COT's much-anticipated debut, many of the crew members who actually get the cars ready for race day were far from intimate with the machine until this week.

"Part of the reason we knew we had to lay the format out [Thursday] the way we did, adding the extra time, is because we've been racing since Daytona in February," Darby said. "So the teams and the crew members that are here with these cars are the guys who week in and week out come to the racetrack and race the cars. The majority of all of these crew members have probably never laid a hand on these cars until this weekend when they got here to the racetrack.

"It's all been done with team engineers and development crews and stuff like that. So the whole project takes a whole new outlook now -- because this is part of an actual event and it's real. Some shops are really good with conversation in meetings as far as transferring information from the engineers to the race crews, and back and forth -- and some aren't. Each individual team is different. So with each individual team, we need to take the time and do due diligence and walk through all the explanations and everything -- even though we probably had the same explanation a hundred times previously. But it might not have been to the actual guys who are here now working on these cars."

Robbie Loomis, vice president of Petty Enterprises, said that while the inspection process overall went as smoothly as could be expected, it simply must get faster.

"I'm glad they brought us here on Thursday," Loomis said. "I mean, obviously it took a long time to get 'em all through. But mostly there was good communication between NASCAR and all the teams. I'm sure NASCAR will pick up the pace of the inspection process. The inspection process moving forward will have to be speeded up quite a bit from where it's at right now."

The five stages of COT inspection

The 42 Dodge team took advantage of an extra day allowed by NASCAR to go through COT inspection at Bristol Motor Speedway. It's a process that requires five stages and several hours.

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Loomis said that from what he saw, most of the inspections themselves were taking roughly twice as long as they usually do.

"It was probably taking 15 to 20 minutes a car and they're going to have to cut that down to six or seven minutes a car," Loomis said. "So they're going to have to cut it about in half."

Of course, some cars, such as the No. 42 Dodge of driver Juan Montoya, took much longer to get through the inspection process. And then there were the lines that all the cars had to snake through, just to get to the front where the actual inspection could take place.

"The line took forever, and because this is a short track, it's kind of hard to get through," Loomis said. "It's not a real good layout [for inspections] and it's hard to get through. But I'm sure they'll improve on that and we'll get through better."

Darby said that all the preparation NASCAR has put into getting the COT program off the ground paid off. But he added that there is no substitute for actual on-the-job experience, which is what made Thursday such a unique experience.

"All the conference calls, all the meetings, all the question-and-answer sessions and even the hands-on stuff that we've done since last June, it was all valuable and all very justified and all worth taking the time to do," Darby said. "But nothing is more valuable than being able to have the extra day here to deal with the guys who are actually racing the cars."

Darby said no teams had major problems. He credited the diligence of race teams for that.

"For the first time out of the box, I'm amazed. I really am. I'm very impressed," he said.

Roy McCauley, crew chief for the No. 2 Dodge of driver Kurt Busch, said that despite the grumbling about how long the overall process took for most teams, no one should be too upset. Not yet, anyway.

"I don't think you can judge from [Thursday] because it was the first time it was done," he said. "I don't care what it is that you do for the first time. The first time is always going to be the hard one, so to speak, no matter what you do. Whether you're inspecting a racecar, building a racecar, or putting an engine on the dyno, the first time is always going to be the hardest.

"I think next week at Martinsville will be a little clearer judge of where things are at. I don't think people should overreact to what they saw [Thursday]."