Random Thoughts

Maybe part of the reason it hasn't gotten a lot of attention is because it's a pretty technical article and a lot of fans don't understand or enjoy the technical side of the sport. I find it pretty interesting to read about the technical side even though some of it definitely goes over my head. One interesting thing in this article is that apparently the MWR engineers at the test openly admitted that they don't like the COT, I guess because how hard it is to get it set-up right. At the time the reporter tested the #55, Dr. Eric Warren was still with the team and he emphasized the importance of the tires and getting the tire pressures right. This quote should seem familiar to Michael's fans - “What we are seeing this year is that people will make the car better during the race, then lose a handle on it out of nowhere.” Seems like that's a regular thing for Michael - he has a great car and then suddenly out of no where the handling goes away and it ruins his entire day. This is extremely frustrating to fans who are listening on the radio during races because they don't understand why the team can't just put back the car back to the way it was but from the sounds of it, that's not always so easy.

What I was really astonished by was that even though the COT is supposed to save the team money, apparently it's actually costing the teams even more money due to the testing and R&D costs. From the article:

The CoT was supposed to save money, but the talk is that costs have gone up because teams are spending huge amounts of time in the wind tunnel chasing small gains. The amount of computer modeling has increased because, as Waltrip Racing’s senior analysis engineer Mark Catania says, “We basically threw all our notebooks away when we went to these cars.”

Despite NASCAR’s ban on data acquisition during race weekends, teams are loading up their CoTs ($100,000, less engine) with $1 million worth of instrumentation at test sessions to try to discover what is happening at the tire contact patch. In theory, teams need far fewer cars than they ran in the past because the Car of Tomorrow was designed as a one-size-fits-all machine, whereas the old cars were tailored for the event: road courses, short and intermediate ovals, and superspeedways. However, Waltrip Racing has an inventory of about 55 cars, according to Warren, with eight in build at any one time, which is not much different than what teams were running in the recent past. Warren explains: “Even though you can take the same car to a short track and an intermediate one, they get trashed more often because the slightest of damage in a race means the car may not be able to pass the NASCAR inspection process because of the tight tolerances demanded. So you save in the number of car configurations but lose more in the course of normal racing.”

So just exactly how are the smaller and underfunded teams supposed to be able to afford $1million worth of test gadgets for testing? Or fancy computer modeling? Or a bunch of cars? Or the personnel to oversee all of this? It seems to me that the COT came to the sport at the worst possible time because the poor economy and resulting sponsor woes for many of the teams makes it hard for them to be able to do the necessary tests to try to find those small gains or build as many cars as they need. Do all the fans that complain about why their favorite team is doing so poorly or laugh at drivers who are struggling each week realize what a difficult challenge many of these teams have when it comes to the COT?

Reading about the reporter's test of the car is also interesting because he calls being in the car a hostile environment. For one thing there's the heat which McD told the reporter causes him to lose ten pounds each week. But there's also the way the car drives which the reporter says seems harder to driver than the older style car he once tested. He described the way to get the most out of the COT on a road course as needing "finesse and violence in equal measure." Michael said,

“It’s a lot like wrestling in that you have to hop the curbs to get the car to turn. Yet stamping on the gas is not an option. You can’t mat it at Charlotte at 180 mph, so you can’t mat it here. You need a lot more finesse than you might think.”

Again, I ask - do fans realize how hard it is? That these drivers aren't just cruising around the track on road courses or anywhere else. It may look easy but it's not. The writer sums up by saying,

Then you think about driving a CoT at Charlotte, where the top drivers are dirt-tracking them into corners at 170 mph and more. It must be plenty challenging in a car that drives predictably. In something as compromised as the CoT, these drivers sure earn their money.

Yeah, they really do earn their money! Especially when you consider that they aren't just out on a test course like this reporter was, they're racing against 42 other competitors who are some of the most elite race car drivers in the world, often at close quarters. It's really incredible - and fascinating - what these drivers and teams are doing in an effort to try to tame the COT beast and get to Victory Lane.