Live Blog: Brickyard turning into the suck-yard with 60 to go
Written by Scott Keller · July 27, 2008
With 60 laps to go the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard is turning into a joke. So far, the 2008 edition of the Cup race is showing just what a terrible race car this Car of Tomorrow is. The cars are wearing out tires in 10 laps, and NASCAR is doing the only safe thing they can do by throwing a “competition caution” every 10 or 15 laps.
I can’t imagine paying big bucks to go to the race today only to watch three hours of caution periods ( although it seems like a lot fewer customers the ponied up the bucks to watch the taxi cabs this year.)
The COT is proving not only to be ugly (the trend for cars racing at the Brickyard in the 21 century), but is a car with such horrible suspension design and aerodynamic characteristics, that the only thing that cup teams can do is abuse the Goodyears to make these cars turn. Richard Childress is on the TV right now, and he’s probably right that it’s not Goodyear’s fault.
I lean more toward blaming NASCAR for creating such a turkey of a car. Even worse, NASCAR didn’t do enough testing with the COT at the Brickyard, arguably the Cup Series’ second biggest race. You can’t blame Goodyear for trying to come up with a tire, without sufficient testing, to deal with the punishment of a car that is intentionally designed to be a dog the first place.
Comments
2 Responses to “Live Blog: Brickyard turning into the suck-yard with 60 to go”
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This was a drive around that wasn’t worth watching. My opion from last year was and still is the COT car will turn NASCAR into follow the leader until he breaks racing like so many other types of racing today. I sure hope I’m wrong. A lot more tire testing was needed before this race. Everything takes time I just hope NASCAR gets it right soon.
Nascar is definitly turning into follow the leader more and more. Making the cars track straight will help tire wear.
You also have to wonder why any manufacturer would spend so much money on development as Toyota has and when they have wins to show for there work, they have 15 % HP taken away. COT does not represent anybodys manufactured car and you will see Ford and GM and Toyota spending less in these hard economic times especially after what just happened to Toyota..