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The wing may no longer fly in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing.According to reports on NASCAR.com and SceneDaily.com, NASCAR has taken drastic steps towards the possibility of removing the raised wing from the rear of the current Sprint Cup Series car in favor of the traditional attached spoiler. Testing, the sanctioning body says, is underway with an announcement coming in the next few weeks.
Such a move by NASCAR not only puts the sport in a tough place with the season's first on-track action less than a month away, but also seems to be an attempt to rectify the much-criticized Car of Tomorrow chassis -- despite previous denials of such major moves.
The Car of Tomorrow (CoT) made its debut in 2007 as NASCAR's next-generation race car designed to be safer and easier to build with significant changes to its aerodynamic package. Out was a mostly flush front air dam and the traditional blade rear spoiler on the decklid, and in was a front splitter that resembles in some fashions a cow catcher and an elevated wing on the back.
The intent of the rear wing was to give the car not only a sportier look with ties to current spoilers on everyday production cars, but also allow air to flow easier down the back of the car -- helping a trailing car to have better front downforce with air pressure holding the tires on the track.
The intent didn't exactly match the results.
As a result, the car has been -- as they say in F1 circles -- scrutineered and roasted by fans and drivers alike for its overall appearance and its tendency to be extremely difficult to fine tune on the track. The biggest criticism, though, came from the pair of dangerous acrobatic flips executed by Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman at both Talladega races in 2009 after getting spun around backwards.
As a result, a move away from the the wing may be more from necessity than preference of NASCAR's leadership who have long vowed to keep the CoT as is for the time being.
The question, though, remains on whether or not slapping a wing on the back of the current CoT car -- a la the new Nationwide Series car -- will make a difference in terms of a car's ability to fly easily into the air at Talladega or Daytona. Obviously, NASCAR is going to look at that very closely.
More importantly is the question of how it will affect competition. Sure, a sweeping change for the entire series keeps a level playing field but a sweeping change also throws out tons and tons of hours of testing, data gathering and otherwise knowledge on how to set up a Sprint Cup Series car.
In other words, a sweeping change might also change who's been dominant -- which is surely something NASCAR has considered with a driver looking to make it five championships in a row in 2010.
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