Time to see if COT will take to the heavy air in Phoenix (cont'd)

"I think the fans are going to enjoy it," he said. "Especially being a night race, I think the speeds are going to be down a little bit. To me, there's nothing wrong with the cars. They're a little bit slower. The more time teams have to spend with these cars, the faster they make them. I think the cars; really their potential is going to be up to Goodyear. If Goodyear starts bringing back softer tires because the cars don't handle as well or go as fast, you'll see faster speeds and the racing will be just as good."

Jeff Burton, who won last weekend at Texas with the conventional car, took part in a COT tire test at Phoenix and told Richard Childress Racing teammate Kevin Harvick that the new car drove better than the one he raced there last year. But that could change once the car gets in traffic.

"Bristol and Martinsville are so short that, mechanically, the [COT] wasn't too terribly different from our other cars and where we were used to," Casey Mears said. "But when we get to a place like Phoenix where we actually start seeing some speed, that's when the downforce of these cars is going to start coming into effect. The downforce on the [COT] is a lot different than on the Monte Carlo. And because Phoenix is a combination of mechanics and aerodynamics, we'll get a chance to see how these cars work in traffic."

Phoenix will also mark the first COT race since NASCAR made design changes in an attempt to prevent the right-side foam from melting which plagued several drivers at Bristol and Harvick and Martinsville. NASCAR issued a technical bulletin prior to this week's event mandating that the foam, meant to absorb energy in an accident, be installed higher on the right side to provide more airflow between it and the exhaust pipes.

Proximity to the exhaust pipes, which typically run hotter on short tracks, was causing that foam to melt or smolder. At Martinsville, the smoldering foam burned a small hole in the interior right side of Harvick's car, leading the driver to say that the situation was turning into a "joke."

But last week at Texas, Harvick -- who swept both races at Phoenix last season -- tempered his comments. "I've been in cars on fire in a lot worse condition than that one was," he said. "It was no big deal, just another racecar."