New car schedule may change

Last year NASCAR laid out the schedule for a progressive introduction of the new car. As it stands now, it will be raced in sixteen events this season, twenty-six in 2008 and the whole season in 2009.

However, the escalating costs and complex logistics of running both the current and future specs in the same year, have led teams to push for the full implementation of the Car of Tomorrow for next year.

"It's just a pain for the teams to run two parallel programs with two different race cars," John Darby, Nextel Cup Series Director said at Bristol on Wednesday.

"It's a pain for us to manipulate, and work and apply two different rule books and two different inspection procedures.

"A lot of what's happening is settling in all the competitors that this is the future, this is the car, so why are we going to wait for three years? I really don't expect that we will."

During the Car of Tomorrow test at Bristol on Wednesday, Darby has received further feedback from the teams that indicate an early switch to the Car of Tomorrow is more than logical.

"What's come to light is that these cars are much easier to build," he said.

"They can build them much faster than the current cars and the fabrication process, they believe they can shorten those timelines, especially if they didn't have to have the other programme still working over here.

"Whether we would expend the [Car of Tomorrow] schedule for 2007 is probably not likely, but could we be all in for 2008? I think that's very probable."

The Car of Tomorrow will make its race debut at Bristol during the Food City 500 on 25 March.