Concord, N.C. — NASCAR’s annual Media Tour kicked off Monday in Concord, N.C., with stops at the sanctioning body’s Research & Development center and Roush Racing, which is across the street.
The big news at NASCAR, in addition to the pending arrival of Toyota, was the announcement of the phase-in schedule for the so-called Car of Tomorrow, which will compete in 16 races in 2007, 26 races in ’08 and the entire 36-race schedule in ’09.
The new car, designed to be safer, boxier and —hopefully—more cost-effective, will make its on-track debut in the spring 2007 race at Bristol Motor Speedway. It will also be used at both races at Phoenix International Raceway, Martinsville Speedway, Richmond International Raceway, Dover International Speedway and New Hampshire International Speedway.
The COT will also race in 2007 at Darlington Raceway, the fall event at Talladega Superspeedway and road course events at Infineon Raceway and Watkins Glen International.
In 2008, the COT will pick up all remaining races at tracks two miles or longer, while its final implementation will be in 2009 at 1.5-mile tracks.
“The Car of Tomorrow will be the car of today shortly,” said NASCAR Chairman Brian France on Monday.
One of the key purposes of the COT is to cut down the number of cars teams need to keep in their inventory because of track differences. NASCAR Vice President of Research/Development Gary Nelson said most teams build 17-19 cars a season, including purpose-built superspeedway, intermediate, road course and short track cars.
Even at tracks of similar distance, cars are built to wildly different specs. “If you look at the cars raced at Bristol and the cars raced at Martinsville, they’re completely different, even though they’re both raced at half-mile tracks,” Nelson said.
Nelson said he hoped teams could cut the number of different cars they use in a season to 10-12, perhaps using the same car at both road course tracks and all short tracks, for example.
How? By taking adjustability out of the cars, the frame rails in all COT cars will be located in exactly the same place, which will be measured by a skeletal series of templates crosschecked by pinpoint lasers.
“You can allow tolerance on things that are less expensive for the car owners to move around, say, a-frame or camber and caster adjustments,” said Nelson. “But then you look at the expensive things that are being used for adjustments, and then you lock them in to coordinates based off the frame rails.”
Time will tell how well the theory works in reality with the COT.
“Do I think we can do our job with fewer cars? I suspect that we can,” Jack Roush said, “but it’s certainly very, very early. I’m not going to take that to the bank. There’s some amount of inventory that we won’t have to build, but at the end of the day, you still run a car 36 times and you have a spare car in the hauler every time and you’re going to wreck the same number of cars. Once you get past the initial inventory, the cost is going to be exactly the same.”
PARTY TIME: Mark Martin said Monday he is planning another huge fan celebration at his new museum in Batesville, Ark., during Easter weekend April 15-16.
“We’re going to have Ford Fan Days for two days and it’s going to be awesome,” said Martin. “We had it last year and we’re going to have it again this year. I want all our fans to come, because I spend all day for two days hanging out with them and we have a chance not only to sign autographs, but it gives me a chance to talk with fans, take pictures and go through their old photo albums, things like that. It means so much to me.”
Alas, Martin added that there are no plans to campaign his No. 6 Ford Fusion in the special paint schemes he ran last year, when he displayed the colors of former sponsors.
WORLD OF DIFFERENCE: Jamie McMurray, the newest member of the Roush Racing armada, put the difference between his old employer and his new one in clear perspective Monday.
“When I spoke with Jimmy [crew chief Fennig] one of the first times, he said, ‘Now look, Jamie. You’re going to have cars that at times you are really going to have to work on to get to the front, and then there’s going to be days you have a car where you’re just way faster than everybody else,’” McMurray said.
“I didn’t say anything to him at the time, but I thought, ‘That’s so cool that you’re thinking that way.’ Everyone’s had cars like that sometimes, but we have that often here.”
DOWNSIZING: Jack Roush said he and NASCAR have agreed on the basics of how to get his Nextel Cup team down to four cars, which was mandated by the sanctioning body late last season.
“We will go back to four teams, but it’s not immediate,” Roush said. “There is a cap of four [Cup teams]. I will comply with that when I’m past my commitments I have with drivers and sponsors. We’ve finally got an understanding of what is possible and what we can do.”
Roush would not speculate on when his team might go back to four cars, but said his existing commitments expire between 2009 and 2011.
