Despite all the complaints, new car finding acceptance

That didn't take long.

Usually what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas -- along with at least some of your money.

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But what happened during Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400 Sprint Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was enough to send some folks to the tops of their racecars, where they shouted with joy. One even was so overcome that he did a backflip.

OK, so that was only race winner Carl Edwards, who is making a habit of this. Sunday's victory was his second in a row this season -- his second in less than a week, actually (thanks to the interminably rain-delayed Auto Club 500 in California that didn't wrap up until last Monday).

But Jack Roush, who heads up the Roush Fenway Racing operation that fields Edwards' cars, would have done backflips, too, if he could. And Roush, well, let's just say he doesn't always look at the glass half-full.

Only Captain Jack could win two races in a row and still keep up a steady stream of serious complaints about the Toyota Menace, and how that manufacturer (in his mind) is fielding a superior engine to everyone else (read more).

What happened in Vegas was that, for the first time, praise was heaped en masse on the Car That No Longer Can Be Called What NASCAR Once Wanted Everyone To Call It. That's the CTNLCBCWNOWETCI for short -- but the sport's biggest star, Dale Earnhardt Jr., must not have gotten the memo from headquarters.

He's still calling it the Car of Tomorrow, or COT for short.

And to be totally truthful, he and other drivers remain hesitant in their praise at times. It's as if they are giving the new car begrudging respect in its first full-time season. But the fact is, it won't be long until no one is asking much about it any longer -- because it's here to stay, the races in general have been good with it, and it has now been tested in real race conditions at all of NASCAR's different types of tracks.

Sunday's race was the first time out for it on the 1.5-mile LVMS track. Despite some problems with tires and a record 11 cautions, there was lots of entertaining racing -- and one more important fact to remember.

Jeff Gordon, another of the sport's biggest stars, walked away from a bad wreck and stated afterward that he might not have been able to do so if he hadn't been driving the safety-enhanced newer car (read more). After all, isn't that the main reason it was built to replace the old car -- to protect the drivers?

Work in progress

This isn't to say that everything is perfect with the new car. After only three races this season and 19 overall counting the ones it was used in a year ago, it's still a work in progress.

"We need more time with it," Earnhardt said. "I think you'll keep getting better and better the more time you have with it. They need to explore softening the left-side tire. Just a tiny bit of left-side grip would help out a bunch and keep people from complaining so much."

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They're already complaining a whole lot less about it than they were when it was first introduced in a live event a little less than one year ago. One of the loudest critics of the new car, even before it hit the racetrack, was Roush. He freely admits that he didn't like the idea of mothballing all his perfectly good old cars.

"You know, I'm a farm boy from southern Ohio and I just hate wasting things that have got use left in 'em," he said. "I straighten nails in order to be able to use them again. So that was against my upbringing."

But he knew that to fight it was a losing cause. The new car was coming, and it was coming fast.

It came so fast that Roush was unclear at first on the rules NASCAR was -- or wasn't -- enforcing when it came to testing it. Hence, Roush Fenway Racing fell behind the likes of Hendrick Motorsports and other racing operations.

Once he did understand the playing field, Roush had his boys hit it hard. Now they not only are caught up on the new car, but living proof that if someone hits all the right combinations with it, they can be tough to beat.

Conversely, if a team misses the setup in the new car, it can be in for a long day. Just ask two-time defending points champion Jimmie Johnson, who was going for his fourth win in a row Sunday at LVMS and suffered through a downright miserable afternoon.

Why complain?

Ryan Newman was reminded prior to Sunday's race that he and several of his fellow drivers complained loudly a few years back when the track at LVMS was reconfigured. Now they seem to think it's OK. A little treacherous getting in and out of the turns, but hey, that's just another word for challenging in racing.

That's what makes it fun -- to compete in and to watch. Nothing ever stays the same forever.

But, as Newman admitted, change isn't easily accepted. It is almost always resisted, in life and in NASCAR.

"We as drivers will complain anytime there is a change -- when they change the tires, when they change the track, when they repave the track. We always complain," Newman said. "There has never been a time when I think someone has said, 'Man, I think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread,' when they make a big change like that."

There has been no change bigger in NASCAR in recent years than going to the new car.

But as more races are run with it and the guys back at the shop figure out more ways to make it go faster without wrecking, folks are going to accept it for what it is and move on down the road as quickly as possible. After all, isn't that what racing is all about?

It is a racecar, for goodness sakes. It doesn't really matter what anyone calls it.

And if they can't manipulate the body as much as they used to, maybe they'll get back to working harder to make the engines better. In fact, they already have. Roush is working on a new and improved one as we speak.

Maybe -- wink, wink -- it will even be as powerful as the one in the Toyota cars.

Call it whatever you want, but the odds in Vegas are that in another month or two no one will be calling the new car much of anything other than a racecar. And that's a good thing.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.