Full Throttle

Jack in the Hat has estimated the total cost to change the Roush Racing stable of five teams to NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow is approximately $20 million dollars. Bet he wasn’t counting on the Law of Unintended Consequences: (via Catch Fence and The Augusta Chronicle)

The next stop for NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow is the Lockheed wind tunnel in Marietta. Engineers hope to get a better handle on the boxier car that’s supposed to level the playing field in stock-car racing.

Time is running short for the sport considering the car is supposed to hit the track next year and nobody, including NASCAR officials, has found a way to make it stable. Just getting it to the wind tunnel this week has been a problem because it doesn’t fit in the current fleet of transporters used by race teams. The car is 4 inches wider and 2 inches taller than the models in the Nextel Cup Series.

By making the cars bigger, NASCAR hopes to increase safety and competition by reducing how a team can massage the body. Drivers seem to like their seat moved farther away from the left door, and they said reducing the aerodynamic dependencies might be good, but not at the expense of traction. So far, spoilers and a space-age rear wing haven’t provided enough downforce at the tracks that are 1.5 mile or longer. The development stage continues, although the car is supposed to race 16 times next year, starting with the spring race at Bristol, Tenn.

My guess, and it’s purely a guess, is a new transporter is in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars and most of the large teams have at least two in their fleet. Could the current trucks be modified to the CoT specs?

Again, I have no clue and can only guess, but it sure is a major problem no matter the solution.

It also seems despite all the bluster by NASCAR officials about stabilty and how well the rear wing has worked it just ain’t so. Is that a “sugar coating” I spotted on the wing in the last testing session?

NASCAR, NEXTEL Cup, Car of Tomorrow, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle