The return of the Superbird
Dustin Long stuck around Daytona today (he was done there for this week's round up Cup testing) to check out the latest version of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow.
It has wings.
It's not quite the rear spoiler of the old Dodge Charger/Plymouth Superbird that dominated the sport in the last 60s/early 70s. (This very cool site has more on these cars; make sure to check out the "Pictures/Video" link.)
It's more like something you'd see on an IRL machine. I'll let Dustin describe it:
Car of tomorrow test at Daytona. Only car is NASCAR car with Brett Bodine driving it.They have put a rear wing on the car -- a smaller version of an Indy car wing on the back -- and the car has been on the track with it. The wing goes the length of the trunk. It's about a foot wide and attaches to the rear of the trunk.
Lots of interest in the garage. Officials from GM, Ford, Dodge and even Toyota are here. Key officials from Ford and Toyota are among the crowd. Couple of NASCAR folks in charge of the car are coming in for an interivew a bit later.
Too bad you're not here to see the car with the wing. Engineers and officials from the manufacturers are looking at it with wonder -- kind of like man first discovering fire. They're walking up to it and staring at it, walking around it awkwardly, bending, leaning and taking all sorts of different looks at the wing.
Whoa. More as it develops.
Comments (2)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
As usual, your too slow jumping on a story John... just kidding!
You are correct there will be more as this develops... and it already has.
There is a reason why Bret was the only driver and CoF on track or only "officials from GM, Ford, Dodge and even Toyota" and not any of their "hardware."
Here is the tease:
"NASCAR’s proposed “car of the future” appears to be dead in the water for the moment. Detroit car makers are putting on hold their own operations for the time being..."
Sorry, you'll just have to go read the rest won't you.
Posted on January 12, 2006 3:49 PM
Thanks for the tip, Marc. But NASCAR had more winged cars on the track (one) than Mulhern had sources to his COT item (zero).
What I don't get is why Detroit would balk about the COT. NASCAR's come a long way from the production-car era. I can't believe that's exactly news to Detroit.
Posted on January 12, 2006 4:05 PM