NASCAR isn’t ready to decide after one weekend whether the car of tomorrow will be used for all tracks in 2008. NASCAR’s current phase-in plan includes racing with the car of tomorrow in 16 races this year, 26 races in 2008 and then for the full schedule in 2009. “What we do know is that it’s terribly hard and it’s very frustrating to run two different programs throughout a year,” Nextel Cup Series Director John Darby said Friday. “So for most of the mechanics and the crew members and even a lot of the crew chiefs in the garage, they would prefer just going, just making the decision now. But for the same reason that the original rollout of the new car was three years – a three-year period, will be the same reason that ultimately decides whether ’09 is gone and we’re all in for ’08 or not. That reason is the team owners, the guys that are writing the checks to build these things.If they’re comfortable with scaling up and pushing a little harder and eliminating ’09, NASCAR, we’d welcome it with open arms, for sure. But we also don’t want to force them into that decision,” Darby said. “The team owners will have to come and say, look, this deal is working pretty good. They’re very easy to build, they’re very easy to manage in inventory, so on and so forth, so let’s press on with it.’ We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”(SceneDaily.com)(3-31-2007)
