Will the Big Three force changes to NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow?

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008 | 3:42 p.m.

As the Sprint Cup moves to Michigan one can’t help but think about the state of the American auto industry and the impact its dire financial situation will have on NASCAR.

Peter De Lorenzo authors the Internet magazine Autoextremist.com and one of his frequent topics is NASCAR. In a recent post he claimed that the Big Three American car manufacturers met with officials from NASCAR prior to the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard to recommend changes in the sport that would be more fitting with carmakers’ tough financial outlook.

One idea supposedly tossed around was to begin using “pony” cars (Mustang, Camaro and Challenger) as the templates for the Sprint Cup cars. Ford, GM and Chrysler could conceivably sell more of these models than they currently sell of the Fusion, Impala and Charger because in part, the new race cars would retain the individual look of each street model. The new car would have the underpinnings of the Car of Tomorrow. According to De Lorenzo’s post, this could take place in 2010.

I doubt this will be happening in 2010 or anytime soon after that. First of all, NASCAR isn’t going to let the suits in Detroit tell them how to run the sport. And more importantly, the team owners would be reluctant, after having spent gobs of money to build new Car of Tomorrow fleets, to spend more money rebuilding their stable of race cars.

The American car companies may think they could get more bang for their buck with a race car based on a “pony” car, but the reality is that NASCAR designed the COT to help lower costs. Completely redesigning the cosmetics of the car won’t accomplish that.

In addition, one of NASCAR’s key objectives is parity. I don’t see how parity could be maintained if each race car performed differently in terms of aerodynamics due to the different body shapes.

I’m not in love with the COT and I would like to see more individuality in the Sprint Cup cars’ designs. The new Camaro and Challenger are hot looking cars that would look great on the track. Maybe there is a happy medium that can be reached down the road. I just hope that in the interest of using race cars based on vehicles Detroit feels it can sell, that we don’t start seeing Sprint Cup cars that look like crossover vehicles.

And one more thing, Toyota doesn’t have a “pony” car.

The cartoon I’ve included here was an editorial cartoon I penned for the Las Vegas Sun editorial page two weeks ago.

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