Racing Has Different Look With COT

I don't know if the racing was that exceptional or great yesterday at Dover. Most of the time it depends on who you are pulling for and how they do as to whether you think it was good racing. Yesterday, I was only on the roof for half of the race due to the 44 not finishing the race. From my vantage point, the racing was not that great, but it was different.

As I watched the first half of the race I noticed something that I didn't see with the "old" car: the racing had a "short track" look or a "late model" race car look. That may be a little confusing but what I mean is by the way the drivers had to set up a pass. The passing had to be done so you didn't lose momentum. Even moreso than the old cars. After about 10 laps into a run DJ would start passing cars. As he was making these passes I noticed that he really had to start setting that pass up a lap before. He would follow the car into the corner as close as he could get and then as that car would push up he would run up the track in the center of the corner and make the exit of the corner more of a straight line. By doing this he could get in the gas quicker and not have too much steering in the car off of the corner. He would basically have more momentum on the exit of the corner and even if he couldn't complete the pass by the exit he would be in position entering the next corner. He was making this work and moving up before having his problems.

The reason that I noticed this is because it reminded me of the way it looks when I go watch the late model stock cars at Hickory or Tri-County Speedway. There was just a different look to the cars and the way they appeared to drive. With the old car you could drive into the corner harder and the COT you have to really manage your entry. I have never even driven one so I don't really know and I am going totally off of what I watched on Monday. I liked the way the cars looked and it does look like they might be harder to drive than the old cars.

I know NASCAR and the teams are going to come up with new ideas for the COT and it will evolve. Something else that caught my attention was the way one car could run away from the car behind him but stall out on the next car in front of him. Once dad would catch a car he really had to change his line to make a pass. That might be a good thing. You will automatically know the car is going to react different and you, the driver, must adjust to make the passes. You would probably get a different answer from all of them about that point. The best thing I noticed was that when you ran right on the tail of another car, it didn't seem to make the front car loose or make the car in the back any tighter. That is hard to tell from where I stand but my driver never said anything about getting too tight as he ran up behind cars.

There are still a lot of opinions out there on the COT, but as you know, it is here to stay. So, as the adjustments and changes are made we will all come back to the basics and just pull for our teams or our drivers and it will not matter what the next version of Nextel Cup cars looks like. This is a huge sport and it will go through many more changes as it continues to find new ways to grow.

In closing, I want to express my sympathy to the France family. All of us in this industry owe something back to Mr. Bill France, Jr. because he and his family have provided so many of us with an avenue to have jobs and careers that we enjoy. He will be missed but his legacy will live on with each race.

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