NOTE: The engine blew in Busch’s B car late in Tuesday afternoon’s practice session. The team plans to test a COT on Wednesday at DIS.

“I think we were on lap 30 of a run trying to get to lap 40 and put time on these tires. It just went. There was no indication. I had to stay in it and try to get out of Montoya’s and Newman’s way. We had a couple of Dodges right behind us, so I brought it to the apron and shut it off, but it went big when it went. It says B on the car, but it turned out to be our 500 car. The cars were within a tenth, but the B car seems to turn a little bit easier and seems to have less drag on it. That’s where we know it’s a better car. I’ve had two failures in my year stint with Penske, and they’ve both been in practice. One was during the all-star race. We had a lot of miles on that baby. I’d say we had probably 250 miles on it.”

COMMENT ON TESTING THE COT ON WEDNESDAY

“It’s just a matter of us wanting to get ahead of the game and set the curve and raise the bar for people thinking they’ve got their COT scienced out. We’ve got ours here ready to go for a speedway test. We’ve got three built. One is a test mule that will probably not ever be approved. I guess the process of getting a COT approved is a bit tougher. That’s our mule.

“We’ve got a couple of other cars. One is a speedway type. It’s a little slicker and one is for downforce for all of the short tracks those cars will run on. I think we’re doing pretty good with our car count as well as changing all our Chargers to the new nose. Quite a bit of work is going down, but in the end this car of tomorrow is going to be a good thing. I can’t say that right now it’s approved by everybody’s standards but for us and myself the interjection of safety is obviously the key thing.

“I was up in Detroit for the auto show and got a chance to see the new Avenger. It’s got a wing on the back and a mocked up front spoiler on the front. It looks like the car of tomorrow. I’m proud of a manufacturer for producing such a car that you can actually buy that actually races out on the racetrack. You don’t see that with all the manufacturers nowadays.”

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