Wednesday, May 31, 2006

NASCAR COT "Morphing"

NASCAR's Car Of Tomorrow continues to get positive publicity while producing negative results in preparation for its debut in 2007. With a test of the car scheduled for Charlotte following the World 600 weekend, a blow to that test - and potentially to the project - comes from Jack Roush, who claims the car has "morphed" and as a result his organization will not participate in the coming Charlotte test.

This is but the latest blow to a project that has gotten nothing but positive spin by the sanctioning body yet has never produced any kind of test result to warrant belief. An area of concern is the rear deck, with speculation that NASCAR may cut several inches off the rear deck to reduce rear downforce and thus balance out the car. It shouldn't take an aerodynamics expert to see that this may "balance" the car but it will do nothing to make it raceable.

Several tests and several wind tunnel runs have been made on the COT and not one of these tests has produced reason to feel confident in the success of the project. Roush may not be the only team skipping the Charlotte test.

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FOLLOW-UP - The COT tested at Charlotte on Tuesday after the 600, and while NASCAR says it is pleased with how the car raced in the test, the car pushed in dirty air the same as always - said Ryan Newman, "The car definately gets tight. It gets tight through a run and with dirty air." - leaving little reason to think it will improve the racing as so long advertised.

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