NASCAR Could Make Changes to the Car of Tomorrow

Back in 2006, NASCAR announced that they would make a major change to the racing in the future. This change would take place by throwing out the current car style and designing an entirely new race car that would be ready to race in 2007. Well, according to NASCAR.com, the car ran 16 races that first year and then NASCAR implemented the car for full-time use in 2008 and beyond. Now, here in 2009, the car is in its third season on the track and people in and around NASCAR are beginning to think that a change is needed.

When teams first started running the Car of Tomorrow (COT), almost every team in the garage fought a "tight" condition with the car, meaning they had trouble getting the car to turn in the corners. Then, after having time to really work on the cars and find out what made them run better, new problems have come to the surface.

Now, the competition on the track is suffering because of how the cars are designed. In many races over the past couple of years, the driver that gets out front is able to really pull away from the rest of the pack. Many times pulling out to a three or four second lead. The leader is virtually untouchable in these situations because the limitations that NASCAR puts on how the cars are built does not allow the teams to make adjustments that could get them to the leader and make for a more exciting race. Recently, the IndyCar series has made some rule changes by allowing options to be run on certain parts of the cars. This has shown to really increase the amount of side-by-side racing in the series and has added excitement to the races.

To make for better racing, NASCAR may look into making similar changes. A couple of proposed changes include removing the rear wing and replacing it with the spoiler that ran across the back of the old style cars. This would decrease the hole that a car punches in the air, thus allowing another car to come up behind and challenge for the lead. Another change that has been talked about is allowing teams to change more things with the suspension parts in the front of the cars. Currently, NASCAR has strict limitations on nearly every part inside the car, but this has kept many teams from being able to find the ideal set-up because they cannot make the needed changes that would improve the handling of the car. When a car is in the pack and in "dirty" air, it is very hard to handle as opposed to the leader who can run with full downforce on the car and has the best handling conditions.

A move like this by NASCAR would be by no means unprecedented. Many times throughout the past NASCAR has stepped in and made rule changes on the cars to allow for better competition on the racetrack. Until that happens again, NASCAR fans will be watching a lot of follow the leader racing almost every race.

Josh Pate, "Nelson not worried about Car of Tomorrow critics." NASCAR.com