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NASCAR is already thinking about scrapping a three-year phase-in plan and using the Car of Tomorrow at every track in 2008. The original plan was to use the car in 16 of 36 races this year, in 26 races in 2008 and in all races in 2009. That is a long way from the criticism NASCAR heard for years from team owners worried about the necessity and start-up costs of a new car.
-- New York Times

Even though the Nextel Cup cars running around the .533-mile high-banked Bristol Motor Speedway looked very different, before the much-anticipated two-day "car of tomorrow" test had been going very long, the teams were doing many things they always do when preparing for a race. "From a driver's perspective, once you get in the car it's just a car," Jeff Burton said.
-- Charlotte Observer

Jeff Gordon was critical of plans to accelerate the introduction of the Car of Tomorrow. He said that racing teams needed to see how it performed first. Most drivers avoided criticizing the car, although the Formula One veteran and NASCAR newcomer Juan Pablo Montoya said that experienced drivers might call it "horrible."
-- New York Times

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. says that NASCAR has achieved its goal of creating a safer car, or at least that it feels that way in the cockpit. While Denny Hamlin continued to keep Joe Gibbs Racing on top of the speed chart, pacing the second of three sessions during Wednesday's "car of tomorrow" test at Bristol Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. discussed the car's ability to meet its goals.
-- SceneDaily.com

While the two crew chiefs (No. 17-Robby Reiser & No. 9-Kenny Francis) served with four-week suspensions at Daytona International Speedway were free to come to Bristol Motor Speedway for the official "car of tomorrow" test, MWR's crew chief and vice president of competition were not. Their suspension over the use of an illegal fuel additive is more sweeping than the others.
-- SceneDaily.com

Joe Piette, Jr., the rear tire changer on Ryan Newman's team, had a bit of a handicap during a pit stop Sunday. On the first stop, a lug nut off the right-side tire hit Piette in his left eye, knocking out his contact lens and basically leaving him without vision in that eye. A NASCAR official working the team's pit saw the lens after it fell out, and Piette got it washed off and back in just before Newman's second stop. That was a good thing, because the crew changed tires nine times on the No. 12 Dodge.
-- Charlotte Observer

Texas Motor Speedway has canceled its International Race of Champions event April 13. IROC does not have a sponsor. The track will back up Nextel Cup qualifying one hour and then show the Dallas/Fort Worth premiere of the "Dale" documentary on NextelVision screens.
-- Charlotte Observer

Canada's most successful sports car racer, Ron Fellows, has been replaced by Denmark's Jan Magnussen in the No. 3 Corvette C6-R for the 2007 American Le Mans Series GT1 season. Fellows is on his way to Mexico City where he will drive the Kevin Harvick Incorporated No. 33 Chevy in Saturday's NASCAR Busch Series race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. He also is signed with Harvick for the inaugural NBS at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in August and at Watkins Glen the next weekend. No word on his Nextel Cup plans for 2007.
-- Toronto Sun

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