COTs ready, Chase drivers brace for 'Dega unknowns (cont'd)

"The interesting thing about the Car of Tomorrow at Talladega, and I know this contradicts itself, but it's easier to lose the draft and at the same it's easier to catch the draft," said 10th-place Jeff Burton, 186 points behind Johnson. "It's much more situational. But I believe that if you got far enough behind, I don't know that you'll catch the draft. Even if they are three-wide, two-wide, there's a point of no return where you won't catch it anymore. We still don't understand exactly what that point is. I also saw the possibility where people got lined up, say the top 10 got lined up, and 12 on back was double-file. Maybe the top 10 will pull away. Those are the things that are hard to tell what's going to happen."

Added sixth-place Kyle Busch, 136 points behind Johnson: "Obviously the biggest unknown is putting all 43 cars on the track and seeing where everybody's going to wind up. You don't want to fall far behind. If you get too far behind, the pack gets substantially faster than it was before, but it seems harder to catch up because the cars are so draggy compared to what we used to run. So they draft a little bit different."

Then there's the issue of bump-drafting. From the test, drivers learned that the COT "sucks up" to the car in front of it better than the old car, which leads to the distinct possibility of nose-to-tail fields spinning all the way around the racetrack. Of course, NASCAR implements bump-draft "no zones" in the corners and tri-oval of restrictor-plate tracks, and has officials on watch for violators. But drivers wonder if they'll be able to stop doing it, even in areas where bump-drafting is supposedly off-limits, and even if some of the competitors in the full field aren't very experienced at it.

"The cars are going to be closer together," Bowyer said. "You're able to push each other all the way around the track and because of that, the least little slip-up, because everybody is a lot closer, it's going to be more catastrophic. That's going to be the main thing about Talladega. It's going to be more of what we already had."

Added Busch: "I hope that guys keep their heads on their shoulders and we don't wreck each other. You need the bump-draft more now than you ever have, and when you do bump somebody they get squirrely. That's not too promising right there, but we're just going to have to see. You can't have four guys deep bumping each other because somebody's going to come spitting out of the middle."