Full Throttle

Enter NASCAR’s resident curmudgeon (aside from myself) Jack Roush on having spent $300,000 on a COT prototype at NASCAR’s request, for a set of specs that keep changing: “We’ve had just about all the cost containment the teams can afford so far, and I don’t think we’ve got a car yet that will race on a mile and a half race track.”

From there you can pile-on all the “etceteras” you care to, all the Roush CoT related quotes have generally been on the negative side for the last 3 years - ’til today.

Today, Armageddon is here, and the world is gonna end and he singing a different tune.

“NASCAR’s plan has worked,” said Roush, who hasn’t shied from engaging the sanctioning body in several skirmishes over its rules. “The cars are 50% more expensive to build. They’re at least 50% more (costly) to maintain out of a crash. But we save on not having to do extraneous R&D and not having to have as many cars. We’ve probably saved 25-30%.” (Umm, Jack. Wasn’t that “extraneous R&D” that led to a funky oil tank cover and resultant points reduction? -ed)

“This egg-crate template setup that I rejected and resisted as it came in really limits what you can do, so the amount of money you can spend on making your mousetrap better is limited,” Roush said. “That’s NASCAR’s wisdom that has done that. Now as a manufacturer, you can spend twice the money and get almost nothing out of it. Certainly, you don’t get an aerodynamic advantage. When they finally get the engines all defined to NASCAR’s specifications that will also limit the amount of benefit you can get from spending untold sums of money on engine development.”

Has Jack gone off the deep-end and drowned in NASCAR Kool-Aid? Is the world really ending?

Or did Jack just come from an A-Team film-fest and channeling Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith: “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Whatever the case, he makes an interesting point on the new Chevy and Toyota motors and the about to be introduced Dodge motors and why Fords hasn’t been rolled out at this point. He claims if approved by NASCAR, the Ford motor might not hit the track until 2010 and at a cost of $8 million to the team.

“Right now, there’s not money in anyone’s budget to replace all those engines,” he said. “In today’s stringent economy, we want to not have to burden ourselves by replacing things that have life left in them. NASCAR recognizes that, too.”

Toss that around the frontal lobe a second.

Is it possible, nay… is it probable NASCAR through little fault of their own have been caught flat-footed by the current gas prices and sponsor cutbacks?

Would it also be within the realm of possibility that is why Chevy’s NNS engine sits at the NASCAR R&D facility unapproved for competition?

You see where I’m going with this don’t you?

By “handicapping” the Toys, Chevy has no need for their NNS engine and Ford can save cash in both top series - assuming NASCAR tinkers with Cup engines - by maintaining use of the current powerplant.

Inquiring minds, foil-hatted bloggers and a curious NASCAR Nation wants to know - is THAT the real reason behind the cutback on the Toyota NNS engines?

Talk among yourselves… I’ve got a mirror to stand in front of. Maybe these crazy thoughts will abate after a bit of reflected moonbeams bounce off my skull.

Technorati Tags: Jack Raoush, CoT, Roush-Fenway Racing, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Toyota