Introduction of Nationwide Series COT could be pushed back to 2011
NASCAR may hold off on the introduction of the Nationwide Series car of tomorrow until 2011. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
LEBANON, Tenn. – Work on the NASCAR Nationwide Series car of tomorrow is proceeding, though the sanctioning body’s ban on nearly all testing for 2009 could push the introduction of the new car back to 2011.
Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash said Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway that Toyota’s version of the car, the Camry, will return to the wind tunnel for testing this week. The other three manufacturers who take part in the series have all had their versions certified aerodynamically.
The car has been officially tested on the race track twice, but both tests were last year. And given the struggling U.S. economy, many in the Nationwide garage want NASCAR to hold off another year before rolling the car out.
Balash said the sanctioning body will listen to opinions of teams before making a decision. The original introduction was planned for August of this year, but that was pushed back to 2010. Now the car could be held off until 2011.
“We still need to get back on a track,” Balash said. “We still haven’t been to a superspeedway. We still need to get that put on the docket and do that. Based upon the feedback we get from the teams, [we’ll] make our decisions probably early summer on whether it’s 2010 or 2011.”
Some have suggested the car be finalized this year, with testing to begin again late in 2009, with a full slate of testing in 2010 and introduction in 2011. That way, teams can have more than a year to build up inventories of cars and parts before the model is used in competition.
NASCAR has repeatedly said it will rely on the opinions of the garage so the timing of the car’s introduction makes sense.
“At the end of last year, we were really looking at going and testing everywhere and doing a lot of things,” Balash said. “When we put the brakes on with the whole process because the economics of everything were changing, that kind of made us revisit the start date on that project.
“We still have to keep a look at the economics of things, and if things start loosening up, maybe 2010 is the right way to go.”
