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.

"The reason for that is we've already spent four years being salesmen of the car, OK? The car is done. It's now in the hands of the race teams," Darby said. "And they fully understand that in a few short weeks, it's one of these cars that's going to be driving under the checkered flag.

"There still may be a lot of opinions about the cars, but they actually mean less today than they did three years ago, or two years ago, or one year ago. Because the fact of the matter is that the baby is born, it's here on the racetrack, it's going around in circles, the sky hasn't fallen -- and the last time I checked, the sun was still going to set in the West. And we're going to race, so I think a lot of that has just rotated the focus of the teams into making their car the best, which is what they're here to do. In turn, they're backing off all the other stuff."

Inspection process slow and tedious

Nextel Cup Series director John Darby said NASCAR plans to put two COT cars from each race this year through a post-race inspection as a way to learn and adjust the procedures.

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The major concern voiced about the COT was the durability of the splitter in the front. Some insisted that it looked like it would fall off during a long race. And in practice Wednesday, driver Clint Bowyer of the No. 07 Chevrolet proved that it definitely will come off if you smash the front end into the wall -- but no one, including Darby and Bodine, ever promised that the 'C' in the COT stood for Crashproof. That car doesn't exist and never will.

Bodine insisted that the material used for the splitter is amazingly durable.

"We went through really extensive development with that. We didn't just pick something off the shelf and say here it is," Bodine said.

Others didn't like the wing on the back, or the way the car looked in general. But the wing should help produce better side-by-side racing (sound in aerodynamic theory, only time will tell if it actually does during a real race). And once a COT is painted and plastered with sponsor decals, the fact is that it pretty much looks like any other racecar.

The vast majority of the drivers and crew chiefs asked about it after testing at Bristol testified that it ran like one for the most part, too.

That's why Darby boldly stated that he expects to see team owners start clamoring to move to the COT full time for the 2008 schedule, shortening its original three-year phase-in plan by a full year. Bodine couldn't stop smiling as he answered question after question about the dwindling number of questions drivers and owners seemed to be having about the new car.

But again, Bodine insisted it was what he and other proponents of the project expected all along once everyone finally realized there was no turning back, and that the power-that-be had done their homework.

"We've had such success at testing even before bringing it here. I wasn't concerned at all with what was going on," Bodine said. "The people who were and who were most vocal about it didn't know how hard we've worked on this and how long the development process has been. They were the ones that were nervous."

They were once the loudest, too. But now they're mostly silent.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.