The NASCAR Car of Tomorrow

The NASCAR car of tomorrow is here. Bigger and better and safer, NASCAR hopes it will make the Nextel Cup series more competitive. It will run in 16 of the Nextel Series races this year, including this weekend in Darlington. Dale Earnhardt’s death at Daytona in 2001 became a catalyst to unite NASCAR to better protect drivers. NASCAR turned to manufacturers like General Motors for research on safety and aerodynamics. They had three primary objectives. First was to improve the driver safety. They also wanted to improve the competitiveness of the racing as well as the manufacturer identity within the vehicle. For a greater emphasis on the look of the cars- production designers were brought in from Ford, Dodge, Toyota and Chevrolet to give the racecars design cues that better resemble the street car versions, like Jeff Gordon’s Impala SS. The modifications will also lead to money savings, because the new aerodynamics mean the cars can be tuned to work on all of NASCAR’s tracks from Bristol’s half mile to Daytona’s two and a half miles. Produced for General Motors