Full Throttle

Long time readers know I’m hardly a fan of NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow. In fact I’ve made it a habit to make light of the project at times. I agree with it’s stated purpose, increased safety, but my support ends there.

It may save teams money but the cost of the switch is so great the large teams may be forced into amortization of the cost over many years, something they can afford, but the question remains should they have to? At the opposite end of the starting field are the smaller one and two team operations, who may face an uncertain financial future because of the change.

Allegedly speeds are to be reduced also. Hard to tell by what has been posted at Talladega. The CoT was only about 4mph off official pole speed with a restrictor plate that was slightly larger than what is in use today.

Jerry Bonkowski, writing for Yahoo Sports, points out the real elephant in the room. NASCAR’s plans for the CoT have taken little or no consideration to the current financial condition of the US auto makers. The list of employee cuts looks like a re-make of Slaughter House Five: General Motors 30,000 hourly jobs and an, as yet unannouced, number of salaried workers. Ford 30,000 “involuntary separations” and DaimlerChrysler has targeted 6,000 employees that will get the axe.

Which brings us to the elephant and what Bronkowski calls “the right car for all the wrong reasons at the current time.”

In the last year, we’ve gone from a potential introduction of the COT in 2009 to a fast-track introduction roughly one year from now. “Phasing in” is how NASCAR puts it, with several races including the COT in 2007, even more in 2008 and full implementation by 2009