Exhibit takes fan through stock-car history to COT

CONCORD, N.C. -- Even Darrell Waltrip, one of the earliest and most vocal critics of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow, is beginning to come around.

As Waltrip guided a group of fans and media through a stock-car exhibit in a large tent outside Lowe's Motor Speedway on Saturday, it was part a walk down memory lane and part a peek into the future.

Stock-car exhibit

Watch highlights of NASCAR's Back to the Future stock-car exhibit at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

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Waltrip stopped first at a car he used to drive -- the No. 88 Chevrolet Monte Carlo sponsored by Gatorade that he drove in NASCAR's Cup Series in 1977. Brett Bodine, NASCAR's director of cost research, gasped when he saw it.

"How about that hood? You could play a basketball game on that thing," Bodine joked.

Waltrip seemed genuinely happy to see an old friend, and he wasn't talking about Bodine.

"I only came over here because I heard my girlfriend was here," said Waltrip, grinning. "We nicknamed her 'Bertha.' Yeah, it's big and it's ugly. But it was a well-handling car."

Of course, a few minutes later Waltrip said that driving ol' Bertha was like driving a dump truck. But then, Waltrip has been known to flip-flop on some issues -- like the Car of Tomorrow. The larger point he was trying to make was that the new COT is more like Bertha than might first meet the naked eye.

Bertha was big and wide and spacious, and even had an honest-to-goodness chrome bumper. In other words, it looks nothing like the Car of Tomorrow. But what Bertha and the other older cars that are on display in the exhibit (including a 1985 Chevy Monte Carlo driven by Terry Labonte and a 1972 Dodge Charger driven by Richard Petty) have in common with NASCAR's newest car is that it isn't like what Waltrip called "the twisted sister" current cars.

Waltrip illustrated how today's current cars have been manipulated to the point that the nose is off-center and other aspects of the car are all out of whack in a desperate effort to get them to stick to the racetracks and go faster. He said that he has come to realize NASCAR needed to do something to bring the car it was going to run in its top series back in line with the original intended spirit of the sport -- driving stock cars that are safer and are built mostly from parts that can be mass produced.

Pointing first at a Car of Tomorrow and then back at a current car, Waltrip said, "They are not going to allow them to screw up this car like that car."

Then Waltrip gestured again toward the COT that was on display, and implored doubting fans in attendance to give it some time before giving up on it. He advised drivers and others within the sport who have criticized it to do the same. (Continued)