The rumors had been circulating throughout the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series garage for weeks. In late May, NASCAR made it official, announcing that the Car of Tomorrow (COT) will be the exclusive car raced in the Nextel Cup Series beginning with the 2008 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
Rule changes for an upcoming race season tend to be announced later in the calendar year. However, NASCAR made this announcement less than midway through the current race season. This will allow teams to begin their planning process and determine how best to allocate their resources for the rest of this year in regards to the research and development process.
The NASCAR Nextel Cup Series is more than a third of the way through its 2007 schedule. The meatiest part of the schedule is just revving up with what is referred to as the "summer swing." Teams are preparing for the summer stretch of races as well as the most taxing part of the NASCAR season. In the midst of it all teams continue to massage the progress with their Car of Tomorrow (COT) including Michael Waltrip Racing and the #44 UPS Team.
After missing COT races at Richmond and Darlington, the UPS Team went back to the drawing board participating in test sessions at Nashville and Milwaukee in hopes of learning more about the Car of Tomorrow.
"After Darlington, we knew that we needed to try and find some things that we didn't have time to try at Darlington to get us in that race," said Dale Jarrett, driver of the #44 UPS Toyota. "We went to Nashville with a purpose and they did a terrific job of running through everything that we needed to and getting us a better idea of where we needed to be to be able to qualify."
"We're doing a lot of testing and work on these cars and we're starting to learn more about these cars and that should help us as the season goes on and we start getting ready to run this car full time next season," Jarrett continued.
When the COT was first introduced to the racing community the original schedule had the new design racing 16 times in 2007, 26 times in 2008, and then the full schedule beginning in 2009. During the first six races in which the car has competed this season, events have featured close competition on the track while the car itself has demonstrated the advantages of its safety and durability aspects. It was a culmination of those factors as well as support from team owners that led to NASCAR's decision to run the car design full time a year earlier than initially planned.
"We are proud of how the new car has performed at multiple tracks," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's Vice President of Competition. "NASCAR, with the support of team owners, agreed that the new car is ready to compete at all NASCAR Nextel Cup Series events in 2008. Beginning next year the Car of Tomorrow is officially "the car," a Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Toyota."
NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow is the culmination of a seven-year project undertaken at NASCAR's Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C. The new car was built primarily with safety in mind, but during the development process, NASCAR also discovered ways in which the car could improve competition and enable teams to be more cost-efficient.
