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closeTomorrow is now: COT debuts at Texas Motor Speedway
JOHN STURBIN
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008
Car of tomorrow, Car of today. Juan Pablo Montoya says you can call NASCAR's new full-time hot rod whatever.
"Hey, it's four wheels, a steering wheel, an engine. You know?" Montoya said with a shrug during a break in Goodyear tire testing at Texas Motor Speedway. "This is the race car we've got. If you like it, run here. If you don't... just don't, I guess."
The COT made its long-awaited debut at TMS on Tuesday morning, the first of a two-day session during which Montoya and fellow Sprint Cup Series star Clint Bowyer will test various Goodyear Racing compounds on the 1.5-mile quadoval. The COT -- NASCAR's in-house initiative to produce a safer, less aerodynamic dependent and cost-efficient stock car -- was run in 16 points-paying events in 2007. Pleased with the overall results and acceptance by the teams, NASCAR has phased out the "old car" one year earlier than planned. Beginning with the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 17, the entire 36-race Cup schedule will be contested with the COT. The car's competitive debut in Fort Worth will be during the Samsung 500 weekend, April 3-6.
Montoya, the former Indianapolis 500 champion and Formula One regular selected as NASCAR's Raybestos Rookie of the Year in 2007, admitted he did not know what to expect from the COT at TMS and its sister 1.5-mile intermediate layouts.
"A lot of it depends on how well a team is prepared every weekend," said Montoya, driver of the No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge Charger fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. "When we unload the car and the car is good, then most of the time you run good all weekend. When it unloads bad, you don't have enough time [to correct it]; unless you make a big change and all of a sudden the car comes to life. That's part of NASCAR."
So, too, is testing rubber -- a task Bowyer classified as another "boring old test."
"I don't like testing, period," said Bowyer, who qualified for his first Chase for the Nextel Cup last year for Richard Childress Racing and finished third overall. "For a driver, you have to keep in mind it's for a good reason. It's for you to come back and be better. But I'm a racer. When you come for two days and run around in circles and gather a bunch of data for the engineers to look at, you haven't accomplished anything as a driver."
Bowyer, driver of the No. 07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet, saw his morning session cut short when the engine in his Impala SS grenaded down the backstretch after approximately 30 laps.
"I was pleasantly surprised at the speed our car had," said Bowyer, who scored his first Cup victory in the 10-race Chase opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. "We were fast. I ran a 29-[second] flat. So that's getting off in the corner over 200 mph in Turn 1."
Bowyer is working with crew chief Gil Martin, while Montoya is paired with crew chief Donnie Wingo. Both teams are at the beck and call of Goodyear engineers, who Bowyer said have a lineup of "six or seven" compounds to test, beginning with the tire used in the Dickies 500 here in November.
Meanwhile, Bowyer still has one question about the COT.
"Yeah. What are you supposed to call it?" said Bowyer, hedging on the Tomorrow vs. Today thing. "Come up with something."
