Sports

Motorsports

NASCAR of tomorrow

A foreign flavor from Montoya and Toyota, a new car, and an old network's return.

By BRANT JAMES
Published February 16, 2007

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DAYTONA BEACH -- Jeff Burton ponders NASCAR's future with the twist of a plastic spoon in a cup of microwaveable oatmeal. It's easy enough to swallow, somewhat satisfying. It'll do. Same for the oatmeal. Yes, admits NASCAR's resident sage, "this is the biggest amount of flux the sport's ever seen," promising landscape-altering changes as the 2007 season begins Sunday with the Daytona 500. Consider:

- The series will finally use its safer, boxier (and uglier, say drivers) so-called Car of Tomorrow in race competition. But who knows if it'll actually cut costs and make racing more compelling?

- Toyota's entry into the Nextel Cup and Busch series will likely change how manufacturers Ford, General Motors and Daimler-Chrysler spend and compete. Will the Japanese automaker's history of on-track success - and subsequent mayhem after pullouts from Champ Car and Indy Racing League - sting NASCAR too?

- ESPN and ABC enter as broadcast partners and figure to change both how current fans watch the sport and how much NASCAR mainstream sports fans can handle. Will it stem 2006's downward turn in ratings?

- And Formula One star Juan Pablo Montoya's debut for Chip Ganassi Racing could stoke not only Latin-American markets within this country but eventually elsewhere, validating NASCAR chairman Brian France's wish to race abroad.

That's a lot to consider, Burton nodded. There's a lot at risk.

Even still, "it'll be okay."

Because somehow it always is, no matter how eagerly NASCAR gropes for more, more, more.

"I've done this a long time, and I've fallen in the trap of getting all riled up about issues in the sport, but things do have a way of working out," he said. "NASCAR, just when you think they've completely lost their mind, you find out they did the right thing. I can't say how many times I've thought, "Those guys just don't know what the hell they're doing, and six months later I'm sitting there thinking, "Hmm, I guess they did know what they were doing.' "

Richard Petty thinks Burton is being generous. The team owner and seven-time series driving champion credits labor for keeping the show on the road.

"The owners and the drivers make NASCAR look good," he said. "'They know we're going to deal with it no matter what. My favorite saying is if NASCAR comes this week and says we're going to run on three wheels next week, we'll be racing next week, and that's the ingenuity of the car owners and all the people working here."

Plus, as Kyle Petty puts it, "the fans are always going to be there."

They keep coming back even as NASCAR pokes and prods its golden goose.

"We're very careful with our fan base and loyalties, and we're not going to squander that away," France said. "We're going to make changes that we think they'll like, that enhance competition on the track first and foremost."

So far, NASCAR has pulled it off. When it faced a crisis after the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001, it reacted by introducing a broad series of safety measures. While some heralded the changes, others criticized NASCAR for waiting so long. Since 2004, changes have included the Chase for the Championship playoff format, which has been updated for 2007 to include more participants, and a different points structure that emphasizes winning.

The confluence of changes plus flagging attendance and television figures in 31 of 36 points races in 2006 have heightened anxiety for this season. After more than a decade of explosive growth, with some of its claimed 75-million fans starting to tune out or stay home more often, NASCAR appeared to lose momentum. Officials bristled at the notion, citing poor marketing by broadcast partner NBC or other factors.

"Maybe NASCAR is going through puberty," Kyle Petty pondered. "Who says they have to keep growing? ... We're going to have good years and bad years."

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Perhaps nothing has owners and drivers more unsettled than the Car of Tomorrow, both for financial and competitive reasons.

The car, which will be used 16 times this season and fully phased in by 2009, is expected to save teams money in the long term. But team owner Richard Childress estimates it could cost as much as $5-million in development. Teams must also buy new transporters to haul them and rid themselves of useless race cars.

"We foot the bill," Richard Petty said.

Petty Enterprises, a struggling team that sees the COT as an equalizer against bigger operations, built four of the cars that were quickly made obsolete as NASCAR honed rules. Finally, Petty said, the team halted production until a final set of specifications was issued, negating its head start and wasting money.

"If they change the ball, all the players jump up and down and scream and they change the ball back," Burton said, referring to an NBA controversy from this season. "Here they change the ball, and they're like, "Make it work.' "

H.A. Wheeler has a different concern. One of the last carnival barker promoters in the sport, the president of Speedway Motorsports (which hosts 10 Nextel Cup races at six tracks) hopes the new car is the cure-all for what has been criticized as long, boring racing.

"Competition is the most important element of what we have," he said "We can blow things up, shoot people out of a cannon and everything else, but we've got to have good racing."

Apprehension has heightened as teams struggle to build cars that pass NASCAR's rigid new inspection process. Even after mostly successful test sessions, drivers are waiting until the car's March 25 debut at Bristol before deciding if the future has been pinned on a revolutionary machine or what Tony Stewart labeled a "flying brick" that drives "like an old Oldsmobile station wagon, green with wood panel trim on the sides."

The project concerns four-time series champion Jeff Gordon more than anything else in what he calls a crossroads season. He hopes this won't be the big one NASCAR gets wrong.

"I wish more than anything for NASCAR and everyone else in this sport that this car works because there's a lot of doubters out there and this thing has not really gone the way a lot of teams would have liked it to go," he said.

Everyone could use a nice bowl of oatmeal and a little of Burton's certainty right now.

[Last modified February 15, 2007, 13:21:12]

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