NASCAR has learned a lot about energy absorption and materials as they’ve done their due diligence in developing the CoT. “We’ve changed course in the last eighteen months,” Pemberton commented. “As we went down the path of the energy absorption units in thirty degree, driver-side impacts, new materials have cropped up. That is probably one of the best things we’ve done.”
The presence of a wing, rather than a spoiler, on the tail of a stock car has rankled some people, fans and team bosses alike. NASCAR believes the nose splitter and wing will make for better racing. “The wing is something that should help with the competition,” Pemberton said. “It should in theory produce a little less of a wake effect than today’s spoiler. There should be a little more air on the nose of the car behind and that should help people being able to race closer and maybe have more of an opportunity to pass.”
But many other observers, from four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears to a handful of engineers I’ve known for years, disagree with Pemberton’s aerodynamic assessment.
Mears believes NASCAR has made a critical mistake and made the CoT a much more aero-dependent vehicle than the current car, while some engineers have told me stories of having their aerodynamic recommendations ignored by NASCAR I’m told the current Cup car makes 800 pounds of downforce and that the CoT makes half that. The CoT will run the same aero package at all tracks so the new car will make much less downforce at all the tracks, short tracks and road courses included. This could result in a scenario much like CART saw five or six years ago when it experimented with running reduced downforce, speedway-like setups on the one-mile ovals. To CART’s dismay, they discovered that nobody could pass. Once the leader caught the last-placed car, the field drove around in a long, unchanging train. It was literally as exciting as watching paint dry and some aerodynamicists think a similar plague will further infect NASCAR’s many medium-speed tracks with the CoT.
