Some of COT safety features to be used in Busch cars
NASCAR may use some of COT's safety features in Busch Series
By JIM UTTER - The Charlotte Observer
INDIANAPOLIS - Pleased with the performance of its car of tomorrow in the Nextel Cup series, NASCAR is exploring the possibility of incorporating some of the new car’s safety aspects with the cars used in the Busch Series, perhaps as early as next season.
Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, said Friday the sanctioning body continues to examine ways to improve the Busch Series. Some Busch teams have already asked about incorporating some safety aspects from the COT, he said.
Pemberton said he did not expect the primary design features of the COT – the rear wing and front splitter – to be used in the Busch Series.
“I see those as pretty much a Cup-series only type of thing,” he said.
NASCAR in development process of building COT for Busch Series
NASCAR in development process of building COT for Busch Series
By David Newton
ESPN.com
INDIANAPOLIS -- NASCAR is in the developmental process of building a Car of Tomorrow for the Busch Series.
Nextel Cup series director John Darby said there is no timetable on when the car may be put on the track, but said the arrival is "inevitable."
"It took us six years to do the Cup car, so a lot of the resources and R&D won't have to be done on it so we can accelerate it," he said on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Darby said the COT makes more sense for Busch than the Cup from a pure financial situation because more teams likely would take advantage of having to build fewer cars as the COT program allows.
The same COT can be used for all tracks -- short, intermediate, superspeedway and road course -- whereas separate cars have to be built with the current car. "That series is one that will take advantage of the less inventory part of the deal," Darby said. "For a young Busch team if they had three or four cars they could take to all the tracks that's great for that series."
Darby said he could foresee a situation where the chassis and roll cage assembly of the Cup COT is used with the Busch car with a different body so teams can't use the same cars in both series. "We could make as much difference in the body and aesthetics and aerodynamic differences as we need to," he said.
Team owner Richard Childress said he would like to see the COT, that will be fully implemented into the Cup series next season, developed more before going to Busch.
"I'm not a big fan of it right now," he said. "It's got to go down the road a little bit [in Cup] That COT you do over there would have to be so distinctly different than what this one is. I know the one they're working on now has to be different.
"It would have to be different where a guy couldn't pull out and say, 'Oh, I think I'll run Indianapolis this week.' We'd have 70 cars here."
COT Mustangs, Camaros would give Busch much-needed boost
COT Mustangs, Camaros would give Busch much-needed boost
By Terry Blount
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: July 31, 2007, 4:00 PM ET
NASCAR's decision to bring a version of the Car of Tomorrow to the Busch Series was inevitable from a safety perspective. If the COT is safer in Nextel Cup, how can you justify running a non-COT car in Busch?
The Busch COT will not look like the Cup COT -- it won't have a rear wing or a front splitter -- but it will have many of the safety features included on the Cup COT.
It's good to keep the cars different. If the cars were as similar as they are now, Cup drivers would continue to dominate the feeder series.
When the cars are almost identical, Cup drivers use the Busch races to prepare for Cup events.
No one wants to eliminate Cup drivers from Busch events entirely. They add interest and sell tickets. However, the feeder series also has to retain its objective as a developmental league.
One solution NASCAR officials are discussing for the future is to make the Busch Series car a COT but switch to models not used in Cup, i.e., to make the Busch Series a sports car league with Mustangs, Camaros, etc.
This would solve several problems. It would give the Busch Series its own identity, something the league desperately needs.
The series will have a new title sponsor next year, so why not give the new sponsor a new product to promote? This also would give the manufacturers another model to showcase in the second most popular racing series in the country.
If every team has to build new Busch cars anyway, make the new cars something unique.
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# Car of Tomorrow Will Come to Busch Series at Some Point: NASCAR is in the developmental process of building a Car of Tomorrow for the Busch Series. Nextel Cup series director John Darby said there is no timetable on when the car may be put on the track, but said the arrival is "inevitable." Darby said the COT makes more sense for Busch than the Cup from a pure financial situation because more teams likely would take advantage of having to build fewer cars as the COT program allows. Darby said he could foresee a situation where the chassis and roll cage assembly of the Cup COT is used with the Busch car with a different body so teams can't use the same cars in both series.(ESPN.com)(7-29-2007)
UPDATE: The Busch COT will not look like the Cup COT -- it won't have a rear wing or a front splitter -- but it will have many of the safety features included on the Cup COT. One solution NASCAR officials are discussing for the future is to make the Busch Series car a COT but switch to models not used in Cup, i.e., to make the Busch Series a sports car league with Mustangs, Camaros, etc. (ESPN.com)(7-31-2007)
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