After years of complaints from fans (and drivers for that matter) over the looks of the Cup Series COT, NASCAR undoubtedly didn’t want a repeat as they developed the Nationwide COT.
This weekend we got our first glimpse of all four stickered up Nationwide COT’s. I don’t know how you feel about the cars, but in my opinion the manufacturers and teams (of course with NASCAR) did a good job making the cars look more like a production model.
I was fortunate enough to see a Challenger COT early in development and I was happy to see through the process there weren’t any major changes to it’s overall look. By far I think it’s the best looking of the new cars. The Mustang turned out well too.
I think Chevrolet missed out here though in not bringing the Camaro into the sport; though I understand their position. Mark Kent, Director of GM Racing said earlier this year:
“At the end of the day, because of the quest for very close competition and the need to have templated bodies in that series, we felt that by forcing the Camaro into the Nationwide templates that we were compromising the body lines of an iconic car. So at the end of the day we just could not get the Camaro in the Nationwide series to satisfy our requirements.”
It’s understandable they didn’t want to murder the body lines of a car they’ve been working on for many years. Still how cool would that have been?
I digress. NASCAR though now has a problem on its hands. They have visually attractive and realistic looking Nationwide cars competing with the less than handsome Cup Series COT.
After meetings this past week with drivers and team officials, NASCAR said they would make changes in 2011 to the front fascia of the Cup Series COT, presumably to make them look a little better up against the Nationwide COT. Let’s hope the changes are enough.
Now I know many of you aren’t fans of the COT and from the comments I have read elsewhere people are still complaining that this new car is still “cookie cutter”. In NASCAR’s and the team’s defense though these things could help bring down costs and will certainly make the racing safer; the hope of course is that racing will be better. Whatever the case, it’s hard to complain about the looks of the car; this is the closest we’ve seen to a production model (in my opinion) since the late-80s or early-90s.
With these new good looking cars though, let’s just hope competition isn’t the cost we all pay.
So any thoughts on the new Nationwide COT? Anything you would have liked to have seen done differently? Any hopes for the Cup Series COT? Talk amongst yourselves.
