Sports

As we enter into this week’s two-day Car of Tomorrow test session at Bristol Motor Speedway, the No. 1 question on that everyone was asking was how the spec car’s front splitter would react to damage. Clint Bowyer answered that question firsthand Thursday morning. Bowyer was in the middle of a long run and was nearly ready to bring his No. 07 Chevrolet back to pit road when he lost it in Turn 4 and hit the wall.

It was actually our fastest lap 48 laps into a run,” Bowyer said with a smile. “I was just fixing to come in and tell them how good of a job they did and away it went.” Bowyer’s car had scrapes all down the right side, and unfortunately the front splitter received heavy damage. So much so to where it was dislocated from the nose on the right side. Bowyer didn’t expect the damage to be that heavy.

“I knew I hit pretty hard, more than a body hammer wasn’t going to fix, but I didn’t know it was going to be that bad,” Bowyer said. “Most of the impact was in the right-front, and heck, the deck lid is all moved over.” By the time Bowyer parked his car, got out and changed clothes, a crowd had gathered around his machine to examine the damage.

“There’s a little bit of an interest in, ‘Is there more than an average amount of damage sustained or less amount?’” said John Darby, Nextel Cup Series director. “Everything we saw here was really no different than if a current car had scraped the wall or hit another car.”

The accident forced a stoppage, and less than 30 minutes later the session came to a close because of persistent rain in the area. But Bowyer said he’d like to see a stronger body on his car once it is ready for race conditions with cars driving side-by-side, which wasn’t seen at all during the two-day session. “We’re just going to have to pay attention to that and beef them up a little bit,” Bowyer said, “especially with the style of racing we’re going to see here.”

Most drivers were concerned with damaging the front splitter the entire test. When cars hit the track Wednesday morning, nobody ran the normal race line while trying to avoid any potential contact between the track and the splitter. As the first day progressed, everyone got more comfortable with the normal line.

“Everybody was so curious; it reminded me of dirt-track racing or motocross racing, nobody wants to go out in the mud,” Bowyer said. “Nobody wanted to go out there and be the test dummy. Cars are going off into the corner and bouncing and shooting into the wall. Everybody’s like, ‘Whoa, we’ll wait a while and see if they figure it out.’”

Ward Burton suffered the first real significant damage Wednesday night when he spun and destroyed his own splitter. Then it was Bowyer’s turn on Thursday. “I think that’s something we need to look at and make better,” Bowyer said of the amount of damage done to his car after his contact. “You’re going to be bumping and gouging here and probably get into the wall up off [the turn]. Seems like everybody struggles getting off the corner. You come off with a lot of input in the steering wheel and it snaps loose. That’s going to be a precaution area there.”

Bowyer said the race here on March 25, which will debut the COT, might be more like a free-for-all once the green flag drops. “I’m afraid it won’t be much racing,” Bowyer said. “You’re racing yourself quite a bit. I’d say there’ll be a lot of cars on the inside line at the end of the race with the radiator showing.” Darby said that’s not to blame on the Car of Tomorrow.

“I don’t think anybody intended to build a crash-proof racecar,” Darby said. “There’s always going to be slips and always going to be parts failures. Cars are going to continue to crash, I hate to say normally, but the way we see today.” Bowyer said the tightness of the car affected how he was able to handle it once it brook loose. “As soon as it got sideways I wasn’t able to correct it,” Bowyer said. “Any other time you’re able to compensate for it and chase it up the corner with the banking. Wasn’t no chasing that one.