Rear wing on COT creating vision issues for drivers (cont'd)

"If he's looking ahead of his car, his vision has to go higher; which is why a lot of the guys run their mirrors kind of midway or at head height, so you can kind of use peripheral vision [to see the mirror] without moving your head -- you're not having to look away to see it.

"It'll be interesting, but I'm sure everyone will get through it."

But with most of the field wadded together in drafting formations, how well their competitors can see is a concern for both Earnhardt and Eury Jr.

"The only thing [Earnhardt Jr.'s] said is that with the rear wing, it's hard to see what's going on behind him, the cars lining up [in the draft] and stuff like that," Eury Jr. said. "And out of the front windshield, you can't see through the guy's car in front of you, because the wing is so high, and they're so big and bulky."

Eury Jr. said that with the vision issues, signaling between drivers might be a problem, and he and Earnhardt aren't the only ones concerned.

"With their hand signals I think there might be a big problem, because like [Earnhardt Jr.] says, usually when someone is bump-drafting you, you can put your hand up to let the guy [behind you] know that you're getting close to the guy in front of you.

"He says you're losing that, and that's going to be one bad thing, and that will probably cause a couple accidents, but there ain't a whole lot we can do about that -- with that wing and the way the windshield angle is in the back, it's tough."

Joe Gibbs Racing driver J.J. Yeley said he saw plusses and minuses at the two-day COT test at Talladega last month.

"The new cars give you a different perspective on the racetrack because, sitting inside the car, the windshield is vertical and you see a lot more out of the front of the car," Yeley said. "It's just a bit difficult to see the hand signals. I think you can run into the back of a guy harder without upsetting them versus the conventional cars, where you get into the back of the guy in the draft and it gets him sideways."

Yates driver David Gilliland has spent some time out front at Talladega, after winning the Bud Pole for this event last season and the outside front row spot in the spring, but he's concerned about being back in the draft.

"Before, for example, you'd be going down the backstraight and if you were bump-drafting somebody, or something like that, you could see through the window of the guy in front of you and actually see the car in front of him," Gilliland said. "Now, with the wing on the back, you can't see -- and you can hardly see the guy in front of you, the way their cars travel and the pitches they're doing, the car's attitudes, the way they are.

"Especially at Talladega, everybody runs the front down as far as you can, and what that does is it brings the wing up, and now you're trying to look through the wing, that's solid, and you can't see. And that's a lot of concern.

"You can see behind you a little bit -- not as good as the other [standard] cars, but close. It's more in front. When you're nose-to-tail you can't see anything but the car in front of you. Before, you used to look through the windshield of the guy in front of you to see what was in front of him."

The bottom line, according to Edwards' teammate Matt Kenseth, is expect more of the same from Talladega.

"I think you'll expect to see a pretty typical superspeedway race -- I think there's going to be a lot of action, I think it's going to be real exciting," Kenseth said. "It is difficult to see, and I see some potential problems of maybe having some accidents there, because we do run so close to each other, bump-drafting and all that.

"It is hard to see around another car, but everybody's kind of dealing with the same thing there, and hopefully it'll turn out OK. The cars, the way they draft and everything, have a lot of potential for a great race.

"It just would be nice if you could see a little bit around them somehow, and I know that's something that NASCAR is working on."

That may not come soon enough for Chase contender Tony Stewart.

"I dislike anything where you have to rely on somebody else -- to me, what you and your team do should be what it's all about," Stewart said. "I don't like having to have a guy behind you or in front of you dictate what you do and where you go. That's really the one reason why I dislike [plate racing]."

The vision issues may only exacerbate Stewart's concerns.

"It's very nerve-wracking," Stewart said. "When you can't plan your moves unless you know what the guy behind you or in front of you is going to do."

According to what a lot of drivers are saying, that possibility doesn't easily exist with the Car of Tomorrow.