COT had look and feel of a racecar at Bristol

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- It still can be referred to as a COT.

But it's not something you sleep on and it's no longer something Nextel Cup race teams should waste time cursing. Most of them appear to suddenly realize this.

The Car of Tomorrow essentially became the Car of Today when NASCAR opened up Bristol Motor Speedway on Wednesday and 50 teams rolled the new cars onto the .533-mile oval racetrack for two days of testing. The bottom line, after all the squealing, protesting, COT-bashing and teeth grinding in general over the move toward this new vehicle, is that if it looks like a racecar and runs like a racecar, it is a racecar.

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Don't like the splitter in the front? Get over it. Once there are 43 of these cars on a track, no one will even notice it's there.

Not a fan of the wing in back? Get over it. Hasn't anyone else noticed there actually are more and more street cars lately sporting similar-type rear spoilers, which sort of destroys the notion that the Car of Tomorrow is getting away from NASCAR's pledge to race "stock cars?" And by the way, when was the last time anyone saw anything even remotely close to one of the current Cup cars for sale in a car-dealership showroom for Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge or Toyota anyway? It's a moot point.

After all the whining and complaining about the movement toward the COT during the previous four years or more, the naysayers were strangely silent -- or at the very least, subdued -- during the COT tests that unfolded Wednesday and Thursday at Bristol. About the only ones who didn't seem surprised by this were Cup Series director John Darby and Brett Bodine, whose official title is NASCAR's Director of Cost Research and unofficial title is, or was, Champion COT Tester.

"I think that title is gone now," said Bodine, the former Cup driver who until Wednesday was the undisputed all-time leader in test laps run in a Car of Tomorrow.

Darby admitted that he wasn't surprised the testing of the new machine went so well at Bristol, where the COT will debut in a real Cup race for the first time on March 25. He fully expected it would, just as he expected the most vocal critics of the car would be drowned out by the steady drone of racecars racing around the track there. (Continued)