NASCAR: New Nationwide car to be used at variety of tracks in 2010
NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton oversees all three of the sport's major series. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
NASCAR’s rollout schedule for the new Nationwide Series car has changed, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said Tuesday afternoon.
NASCAR held a meeting with owners in the series Tuesday morning at its research and development center in Concord, N.C., where a consensus was reached regarding when and where the new car should be raced in 2010.
NASCAR told teams at Daytona earlier this month that it wanted to use the car at restrictor-plate tracks and road-course races next year, but team owners apparently balked.
The car now will be used at a variety of tracks, Pemberton confirmed in a telephone interview.
“The consensus is that they feel like they need to roll the car out in the early part of the year and maybe catch a couple of the speedway races and then as we wind down the year, try to run some ovals, mile-and-a-half or miles to finish up the year,” Pemberton said.
The car “may not” make its debut at Daytona in February, he said.
“But it is looking like it will be at a restrictor-plate track next year,” Pemberton said. “Could be Talladega [in April] and/or Daytona [in July].”
Pemberton said a possible schedule for the new car would be single races in April, July, August, September and October. The April and July races would likely be plate tracks, with the remaining three all on ovals.
No road courses will be used.
“[Owners] feel like the ovals represent a larger group of tracks for 2011 that will better suit them for being prepared for 100 percent rollout,” Pemberton said. “The key element to their schedule is to not pick a family of tracks, but pick tracks that have time in between them so they can repair cars or get prepared and study what they’ve done and get ready for the next race.”
Pemberton emphasized the rollout schedule is “all tentative,” and NASCAR wants to make an official announcement before Watkins Glen next weekend.
NASCAR held a second meeting Tuesday to talk about construction of the car, going over rules, the inspection process and templates with about 125 car builders and crew chiefs, Pemberton said.
Pemberton said NASCAR will release templates to the teams within the next two weeks. It wants to build up a stockpile so it can release all the templates at the same time.
Pemberton also said an open test of the car likely will not be held this year. NASCAR will probably do an “engineering” test to look at horsepower numbers and test gear ratios for plate tracks.
“We’ll continue to talk to the owners and we’ll pick some time that makes the most sense for teams on getting some extra track time,” Pemberton said. “It could be something as simple as going to tracks a day or two early [next year] and get an extra day of practice time on the cars.”
