One year later, new car still trying to garner approval (cont'd)

What the car has forced teams to do is make adjustments. Johnson was a bear with the car in its limited use a year ago. As its use has broadened, his team has struggled to adapt, with only a runner-up finish at California to show for the first four races.

Johnson thinks expanding the use of the car to tracks of 1.5 miles and up has increased the adaptation difficulty exponentially.

"On the easier tracks where grip is not all that difficult -- short tracks where aero is not all that important -- the racing has stayed very similar," Johnson said. "When you get on the bigger tracks, and Atlanta is a perfect example, it really puts everything to the test. The aero platform of the car -- the aero balance of the car, the weight distribution changes they've made, the roll center height changes they've made, the limitations we have in front geometry -- there are just a lot of things that all took grip away from the car.

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Carl Edwards has four victories in the new car.

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Lineup

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
2.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
3.	Clint Bowyer	Chevrolet
4.	Matt Kenseth	Ford
5.	Casey Mears	Chevrolet
6.	Tony Stewart	Toyota
7.	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge
8.	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet
9.	Carl Edwards	Ford
10.	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet

• Lineup | Videos | Photos

"And then we had a new tire last weekend [at Atlanta] and all of that piled up to make a joke. They were just impossible to drive. But as we get to other tracks where grip is easier and better, I think the racing stays similar.

"It's going to be the extreme tracks [that will be a challenge]. Darlington, I remember last year was just a pain to drive and it was ridiculous how slow we had to go to stay on course. Now it's been resurfaced so that'll be a forgiving track.

"I think the high-grip-level tracks -- Darlington, Atlanta, Michigan, Pocono -- you're going to hear a lot complaining. It's going to be a tough, tough process to get the car right. And then you get to the other tracks and it'll be more normal."

The car's aerodynamic challenge comes from the fact that its dimensions are extremely finite, with infinitesimal template tolerances. Even suspension adjustments are limited. And the limitations have intensified the competition.

"It's closed the competition up much tighter for sure," Gordon said. "If you look at just lap times, you look at a much tighter group of cars. It's just made the crew chiefs have to go to a whole different area of tuning.

"I just think this car is very equal among all the teams out there. I think we've seen the potential to have some really good racing, we've seen some really good races but at the same time I'm still concerned because the aero-push behind cars is really, really bad.

"If you don't have a multiple-groove racetrack -- thank God that they re-did this racetrack, because the fact that we have three or four different lanes to move up to now is so much better for this car. If we had the old track with this car we would be follow-the-leader with gaps in between each and every one of us because it's so hard to one, get this car around the track with the bumps but the aerodynamics really affect it."

Matt Kenseth is another driver who has to struggle to smile about the chassis even though he has a respectable 11 top-10s with it, though he only has five top-fives and no wins. He said he couldn't even begin to offer the car a grade for the year.

"I don't even know where to go with that -- I haven't really thought about that, I guess," Kenseth said. "From where we started to where we are right now with the program we're much better and I feel a lot better about it from a competition standpoint and how we're running compared to our competition, but the car hasn't really changed.

"We've just gotten a little bit better with it and a little bit smarter with it. It's the same for everybody. You've just got to figure out how to make yours drive better than the rest, I guess. It's different than what we had before, but yet it's still the same -- we're still trying to get it to go around the corner faster than everybody."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is another who has decent statistics with the car, six top-fives and nine top-10s, plus two non-points victories at Speedweeks 2008. But while he was the only man who offered a grade, it was only middle-of-the-road.

"I would give it about a C or so," Earnhardt said. "There are a lot of things about it that are nice and are good. There are a lot of things about it that still need some work and hopefully the window is still cracked open for some slow change, maybe some slow, methodical evolution for this car over the next two to three years -- because it is obviously here to stay.

"I would hate to think that this is exactly how this car is going to be three years from now. I am sure there will be some things that will happen and we will learn and encounter. As we did at Atlanta [last week] being an example, we will encounter things that will show us a new and better way.

"Hopefully we aren't too bullheaded to not want to build them the right way. It has great and amazing potential and it is here to stay -- so we all might as well learn how to live in harmony with it."