Thursday, September 04, 2008
Though teams are still complaining about the car-of-tomorrow, NASCAR is adding a Nationwide version
Kyle Busch won NASCAR’s first car-of-tomorrow event, last year at Bristol...and promptly ripped the design for its ill-handling characteristics. Busch is still winning in the new car—with nine wins, he’s got more than anyone else. And teams are still complaining. But don’t call NASCAR. They’re not answering the phone on this deal. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
By Mike Mulhern
RICHMOND, Va.
NASCAR officials apparently heard the grumbles of Sprint Cup team owner Rick Hendrick and California winner Jimmie Johnson loud and clear about this new winged ‘car-of-tomorrow,’ which has been such a headache for stock car teams all season the tour’s big tracks: Because NASCAR has now scheduled a test here at Richmond International Raceway of a Nationwide tour version of the car-of-tomorrow, for next Monday and Tuesday.
In your face?
That’s what it would seem at first blush, since NASCAR a few weeks ago decided to postpone bringing the new car over to the Nationwide series because of cost issues.
But maybe the differences in the Nationwide version and the Cup version will be enough that teams – the Nationwide tour is dominated by Cup teams – can find ideas from the newer new car to incorporate in the older new car.
Or maybe it’s just more NASCAR marketing….since there really isn’t much drama left in the race for the chase, with only one spot still up for grabs in the playoffs that begin next week.
Jeff Gordon, still winless this season, and Denny Hamlin may be the men to watch in this evening’s qualifying runs for Saturday night’s 400-lapper, 300 miles around this flat but high-speed three-quarter-mile track. Hamlin, and this is his hometown, was on the pole in May. And Gordon typically runs well here…though Gordon hasn’t really run well many times at all this season.
Tony Stewart is also still winless, and so are Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick. All three should challenge for this win though.
If the racing action everywhere on the stock car tour were as good and hot as at Richmond, NASCAR’s TV ratings would be through the roof (Photo: Nick Laham/Getty Images for NASCAR)
The big story line? Well, until NASCAR’s new testing announcement late Thursday, there really wasn’t one.
However now the focus may be back on the controversial and still ill-handling car-of-tomorrow, that NASCAR designed and that drivers and crew chiefs, even now, still generally dislike.
Is the car-of-tomorrow just a boondoggle? Well, it is safer, but nothing else about it draws any raves, certainly not the action on the track.
However it’s hard to make a race at Richmond boring, so this thing Saturday should be a good one.
Next week’s test, though, raises questions. NASCAR says all four manufacturers can each bring two cars.
But no word on drivers yet. The Nationwide tour is dominated not only by Cup teams but also Cup drivers: Clint Bowyer leads the Nationwide tour, and if he makes the chase he’ll be in New York next week for NASCAR’s annual promotional tour for the championship chase, along with fellow Nationwide/Cup stars Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, David Ragan, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Burton. That leaves big questions about how good a test this might actually be, if the sport’s top stars are at the Hard Rock in New York City rather than here.
This place owes Denny Hamlin one. He had the May 400 in the bag....and then sparks....(Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images)
NASCAR’s Robin Pemberton: “The goal of this test is for the manufacturers and participating teams to start laying a foundation for the transfer phase from the current car to the new car in the Nationwide series.”
That means the final version of the new Nationwide car has yet to be determined, raising yet another question about why anyone should pay much attention to this Monday-Tuesday test.
And it’s still unclear when the Nationwide series drivers might actually start racing these new cars. The original timetable was for a debut next summer at Michigan, but that appears to have been scratched.
“We’re still in the process of approving the cars,” Pemberton says. “This wasn’t a quick process on the NASCAR Sprint Cup side, and it won’t be with these cars.
“We’ve been talking to (Nationwide) teams, and they’ve indicated they’d be better suited, budget-wise, to spend a full season building cars instead of a mid-year transition.”
The model changeover on the Cup side has been accompanied by yowls and complaints. Even the vaunted Hendrick Motorsports operation has struggled – Jeff Gordon, for example, has yet to win this season, and teammate Earnhardt won his only Cup event by stretching fuel mileage at Michigan in June. And Johnson, though he’s got three Cup tour wins, was quite critical of the new car in victory lane at Fontana Sunday night.
NASCAR officials however have steadfastly refused to make any changes either to the new Cup car or to the very stringent rules – even though the Cup tour has been dominated by only two men all year, Toyota’s Kyle Busch and Ford’s Carl Edwards.
This test next week is the closest NASCAR has come to even looking at possible changes to make the car-of-tomorrow more race-worthy.
NASCAR’s Sprint Cup car-of-tomorrow has a unique ‘snowplow’ nose and an unusual rear wing. But its center-of-gravity is uncomfortably high, the design puts too much burden on the right-side tires, and the aerodynamics are roundly criticized too (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
The new car is safer than the old model, clearly.
However the new Cup car has only rarely produced decent racing, and very little side-by-side action. Some crew chiefs complain the new car has actually made the on-track racing worse because it accentuates the undesirable handling characteristics of the old car.
And the key to winning with the new car has been curious – call it the ‘crab’ chassis design, where the car actually waddles sideways down the straights. That trick is no longer a real trick, but only Busch and Edwards have been able to adapt their driving style to the awkward chassis setup. Johnson has adapted on occasion, but Gordon has been unable to get comfortable using that setup, and Gordon isn’t alone.
On top of all that, teams have been testing more this season than ever, trying to figure out how to make the new car work. And that has been quite expensive and time-consuming.
The new car was, in part, designed to make racing ‘cheaper,’ but it clearly hasn’t done that.
Couple those economic problems with the struggling U.S. economy, and it’s been a recipe for disaster. Cup teams are folding, shutting down, at an alarming rate, and the end of that probably isn’t in sight.
These guys may be laughing all the way to NASCAR’s New York City banquet. Tour leader Kyle Busch (L) and car owner Joe Gibbs (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
So NASCAR officials are between a rock and a hard place – they are refusing to concede there are any major problems with the new car, despite the abundant evidence – such as Johnson’s runaway at California, where he led 228 of the 250 laps.
Clean air is so critical to getting the new car to turn in the corners that passing is all but nonexistent.
And crew chiefs complain that even in four-hour races like at California they simply can’t seem to make any adjustments that actually make their car better as the day, or night, goes on.
So what you see at the start of a race is pretty much what you can expect to see the rest of the race.
And, if that weren’t enough, Goodyear has at times been in a real bind coming up with tires for these new Cup cars. Atlanta and Indianapolis were two embarrassments all the way around for the sport. At Atlanta the tires were so hard the cars were simply undrivable; at Indianapolis the tires were so ill-designed they last only eight laps or so before they simply wore down to the cords.
However all the protestations of team owners, crew chiefs and drivers have gone nowhere so far.
What NASCAR might do with the results of next week’s test here is unclear. Another similar test of the proposed new Nationwide car is set for Charlotte’s Lowe’s Motor Speedway in mid-October.
Denny Hamlin, here with car owner J. D. Gibbs, is almost the forgotten man on the team, with such high profile teammates as Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Joey Logano. (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at . And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/
Denny Hamlin should be the man to beat in Saturday’s Richmond 400. He’s hot, he’s from Richmond, and he’s in a Joe Gibbs Toyota....now if he can just beat redhot teammate Kyle Busch (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
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