NASCAR, which tested its Car of Tomorrow on Monday at Bristol, will test it again next Monday at Martinsville. The car will debut next spring at Bristol and be phased in over three years.(Speed Channel), no word who will be testing a COT, but last week Rusty Wallace said he would test there for NASCAR.(4-1-2006)
UPDATE: NASCAR’s testing of its car of the future continues today at Martinsville Speedway. The car, which will debut next year at the Bristol spring race, also will run at Martinsville as the car is phased in over a three-year period. Richard Childress Racing and NASCAR are each scheduled to test the car today. Kevin Harvick is expected to drive for Childress with Brett Bodine driving the NASCAR vehicle. The test will be open to the public.(Roanoke Times)(4-3-2006)
UPDATE 2: For the second straight week, NASCARs Car of Tomorrow tested on a short track as preparations continue for next seasons debut of a safer, more competitive and cost-efficient stock car. On Monday at Martinsville Speedway, #29-Kevin Harvick of the Richard Childress Racing team, along with NASCARs Brett Bodine, tested the new car. While early morning rain delayed the start of the test, the results were extremely positive. We went through our normal aero changes here today, just to back up what the wind tunnel has been telling us, and were able to get some quality laps on the track, said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president for competition. The wing continues to give us positive results. It is going to provide the teams with a lot of advantages when it comes to competition. Well even get more evidence of that when we test the Car of Tomorrow next month at Lowes Motor Speedway.
For Harvick, it was his first time driving the Car of Tomorrow and he was encouraged with his initial test run. When you get in the drivers seat, it feels like just another race car, said Harvick. We got a lot out of todays test, because it helps us determine what kind of package we will need when we run the car next season. From everything Ive heard about the wing, it should be a big help in helping the car behind you get some air on its nose. That seems to be what were fighting all the time; the aero push on the bigger race tracks. Monday marked the second straight week for RCR to test its Car of Tomorrow, as #31-Jeff Burton participated in the session a week ago at Bristol. Harvick says that the RCR team has made a commitment to develop its Car of Tomorrow program. We didnt go to the Car of Tomorrow test at Daytona (held in January), so we came out of there saying that since we had a clean sheet of paper, we needed to work to get ahead of the game and come out of the gate strong with this car next season, said Harvick. Richard (Childress) has made a commitment to do that and weve assembled a team to take this car around and we should have a couple of more cars done by Charlotte. The next NASCAR Car of Tomorrow test is scheduled for May 30-31 at Lowes Motor Speedway in Concord.(NASCAR PR), no mention of Rusty Wallace testing.(4-3-2006)
