Car of Tomorrow driving up costs, not reducing them
Quote selected text Published October 14th, 2007 in NASCAR News
It’s the wrong car at the wrong time, but for the right reasons. That’s one judgment about NASCAR’s car of tomorrow, which in the past few weeks has done the unbelievable: it ruined the show at Bristol and then ruined the show at Talladega, two tracks on tour that always put on great shows.
But not with the car of tomorrow, not this time.
The new model racer, with its admirably bigger greenhouse roll cage (needed for years) and a number of excellent other safety aspects, seems to be going nowhere fast.
Humpy Wheeler, the promoter premier of Lowe’s Motor Speedway, has been a strong proponent of the new NASCAR stock car. But Wheeler and Bruton Smith, and these drivers, are now looking nervously ahead at a major car-of-tomorrow test at Atlanta Motor Speedway in two weeks, a test that is key to NASCAR’s planned introduction of the model next season on the Nextel Cup’s intermediate tracks.
“The car of tomorrow needs work,” Wheeler said bluntly. “I’ve been one of its boosters, but it’s definitely having birthing problems.”
However, NASCAR officials so far have been bullheaded about it, perhaps past the point of commonsense.
Some fans may be voting with their feet and TV remotes: Final ratings for last week’s UAW-Ford 500 on ABC were 4.6, down from last year’s 4.8 on NBC. That downward trend in viewers should be worrisome.
More at Winston Salem Journal
- Q and A with Robin Pemberton
- NASCAR saps speeds as Talladega test wraps
- Kyle Busch Appears in Court for Traffic Flap
- Budweiser Shootout might be run with Car of Tomorrow
- ‘Car of Tomorrow’ to increase number of crashes, according to study
Whoever wrote this article needs to get their head checked. Bristol was one of the best Bristols I have seen in my 19 years of living. It was actually about RACING. And Dega is ALWAYS Boring, so the COT didnt ruin it, it just continued the trend that has always been.
As far as the ratingings going down. Yeah do some research on the Nielsen system and how ratings are determined and then you decide if the ratings are really something that we should be going off of.
As far as it “Driving up costs” NASCAR said from Day 1 that it will be an investment. It will cost some money to get going, but after its going it will cost less because in theory you will only need 2 or 3 chassis instead of 22 or 33.
I like the safety aspect of the COT and that is very important, we don’t need to needlessly loose any more drivers life’s. But the car does need some tweaks. I do think by this time next year it will be a hole lot better!
as a 10 year bristol season ticket holder. if you wanted to see racing bristol was great,
if you are one of those people who just wants to see wrecks i can see why you didnt like
it. i was there for both races this year and they were the best races i have ever seen
there.the racing and passing were outstanding.who would have ever thought you would see
3 wide racing in the corners at bristol that didnt end up as a bunch of crumpled sheet
metal. i cant wait till next year
Brett Bodine was involved with all thus stuff. Enough said!
I didn’t get a chance to see the bristol race so I can’t comment on that race but ‘dega I agree was more boring than usual (i.e. single file racing). I think viewing is down because ESPN have a bunch of idiots in the booth. NASCAR needs to give FOX the entire season they (FOX) know how to call a race and the commentators are much more entertaining.
Fox doesnt want the entire season because the NFL has always and will always pay more.
Dega is allways single file racing for 98% of the race. Races a Dega and Tona need to be 25 laps long. Any longer then that and it’ll get boring. Heck get rid of both tracks they require no skill, real racers race on short tracks and roadcourses were skill is required.
glacierpoint wrote:
The only reason you and other people think THIS one Dega race was
boring is because the media hyped it up about being the COT.
I bet you anything none of you would have noticed this race being
any different if it was the regular car, its only because everyones
looking for its flaws because its the COT debut here.
Although road racing takes some skill it is the most boring stuff to watch IMO.
I agree Roadracing is boring to watch on TV, but that is because you cant capture it properly on tv. Same can be said about NASCAR and any other type of racing. When watching on TV you will only see a little part of what is going on.
Personally I would rather watch 4+ hours of roadracing instead of watching 4+ hours of Dega/Tona on tv though.
The reason that ratings are on the down slide is ABC not the racing. They cut aweay for commercials at the wrong time and don’t return on a yellow until after the green flag is out. This can be very agravating since what Ryan Newman did this past weekend. They need to find someone that know auto racing and time the length of the connercial appropriately with the yellow flags.
Andy wrote:
WHAAAT? The spring Talladega race was just as freaking boring! Everyone got in a big line around the top and waited until the end to settle the thing. That’s not racing. I can see cars riding in a big line on I-285 going around Atlanta every day!
The CoT has made for some pretty uninteresting racing thus far. However, I think that given some time, NASCAR will make adjustments to the rules and smaller teams will catch up R&D wise, and things will even out. Roush certainly isn’t going to stand by and let Chevy dominate for long, and JGR will be pulling Toyota up next year (hopefully).
Yeah, the CoT is driving up costs. Any startup product will do that in any business. I’m not sure NASCAR did the best job with the implementation, but that’s not the CoT’s fault. In 2 years when teams aren’t building 3 or 4 different chassis types for different tracks, you won’t hear all this complaining and the CoT will be saving teams money like it was touted to do.
who ever said that bristol with the cot cars was good? i think bristol sucks now, did any one see the bump and run? dident think so? they should of left the track alone.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the COT or the completely governed bodies from before that, it’s going to be boring. Go back to atleast the 70s Nascar. First of all, it’ll weed out the drivers only in it for money because the sponsors aren’t going to want to be in something that doesn’t pay as much. You’ll get the actual racers sticking around. Secondly, it’ll make the racing more interesting because the cars are actually all different, not this bs they run now about how there are still “slight differences” because of the grills. And should anyone bring up the point that they wouldn’t be covered on tv all the time anymore, so? It’s boring to watch them on tv anyway, and you’re probably the same one blabbing about high ticket prices at races now. If there’s not as much money involved to run the sport, ticket prices would go down. Now, if only Brian France would grow a brain.
hot rod todd wrote:
The second race at Bristol with the new surface reminded me of back when Bristol was paved, and how the raceing was at Bristol back in the 70s and 80s.
hot rod todd wrote:
The bump and run makes for horrible racing. All that shows is that you lack the talent to pass them clean so you just knock them out of the way. The repaving at Bristol brought racing back to that track and ended the era of bumper cars. Now if they could only get rid of restrictor plates.
The reason the ratings are down isn’t the COT and it isn’t the networks. It’s the fans. NASCAR blew up big in the late 90s and early 00s but then they excitement started to wear off for some of the fair weather fans and they are no longer interested. The ratings will drop off and attendance will not be as good, but then they’ll level off and probably stay that way. NASCAR’s growth spurt is over.
The bump and run action of Bristol is what put the butts in the seats at that track for the past decade.
Each track has it’s own personality. They lost a big personality when they reconcreted Bristol. People watch Bristol for the close and rough racing. It takes no talent to do bump and run racing??? I thimk it would take a considerable amount of talent to hang onto a car going over 120 MPH, have someone run into you and hang onto it. Remember, this is stock racin’ (somewhat) we can bump and rub into each other, unlike open wheel.