posted June 2, 2006 at 10:05 EST in NASCAR Betting Trends

NASCAR goes high tech

You have to hand it to NASCAR officials – they aren’t afraid to mess with a good thing.

This Sunday’s Neighborhood Excellence 400 at Dover International Speedway promises to be a paint-swapping extravaganza, the kind that has drawn legions of fans and millions of dollars to stock car racing. But not everyone has been focused squarely on Dover this week. Eight drivers, including Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers, Scott Riggs, Denny Hamlin, Joe Nemechek, Ryan Newman, and Martin Truex, Jr., stayed at Lowe’s Motor Speedway to test the “Car of Tomorrow” (COT), the universal car body that is scheduled to make its official debut in 2007.

Back in 2000, NASCAR was pushing the idea of a “UniTemplate” car body as a way to correct the competitive imbalance that existed among Chevy, Pontiac and Ford, the three manufacturers at the time. Things have changed since then. Safety has become the hot-button issue; the COT features a wider frame, a modified roll cage and larger crumple zones, as well as a number of aerodynamic tweaks designed to slow down the cars and improve maneuverability.

The COT will be used at 16 events next season, mostly on short tracks such as Bristol Motor Speedway, where the spring race will see the new car make its maiden voyage. Longer tracks will be added in 2008, and the full Nextel Cup slate will be run in 2009 with the COT. The cars could be rolled out sooner if testing proves successful enough. For now, it’s been a mixed bag, but Tuesday’s testing went off without a hitch.

“I think there’s definitely something to work with here,” Newman told the Associated Press afterward. “It’s aesthetically not pleasing to me, but that’s not the point. It’s all about the racing.”

Newman has more than aesthetics to complain about this week. Testing at Lowe’s has thrown him off his preparations for Sunday’s race, a race Newman won in both 2003 and 2004. He hasn’t been quite as successful on the Cup circuit since then, winning just one event in 2005 (the Sylvania 300 in New Hampshire) and none so far this season. But that just gives Newman more incentive to do what he can to get the COT off the ground. Team Penske has been struggling to keep up with the rest of the pack the past two years; Newman and Kurt Busch, who won the Nextel Cup championship in 2004 with Roush Racing, have both tumbled in the drivers standings as a result of Penske’s problems.

Newman will also be happy to see Jimmie Johnson riding in the same COT as everyone else next year. Johnson remains well on top of the drivers standings after finishing second at the Coca-Cola 600 run last week at Lowe’s. That broke a three-race winning streak for Johnson, although it was still good enough to extend his lead over Matt Kenseth in the standings. Defending Cup champion Tony Stewart is in fourth place, but he’s well down the odds list for this Sunday after breaking his shoulder blade at Lowe’s last Saturday during the Busch Series race.

Ricky Rudd has been coaxed back into active duty to qualify Stewart’s No. 20 Chevy for this week’s Neighborhood Excellence 400. Stewart will start Sunday’s race in order to collect whatever points the car accumulates, but expect Rudd to slip in behind the wheel at some point while Stewart avoids giving his shoulder too much of a pounding on the track they call “The Monster Mile.”