NASCAR plans to go with COT in 2008

NASCAR will use the Car of Tomorrow exclusively in 2008, a year earlier than planned.

The COT was scheduled to run 16 races this season and be phased into competition during the next two years. But costs skyrocketed while car owners tried to maintain two programs -- the current car and the COT -- and NASCAR said Tuesday it would move up the date if teams agreed.

“The majority of car owners actually came to us and said, ‘Now that we are up and running the car, it doesn’t make sense to have two parallel programs moving forward,’ ” competition director Robin Pemberton said. “It seems to us that everyone is working on the Car of Tomorrow now and ready to use it exclusively.”

The COT was a seven-year project by NASCAR to design a universal car that is safer, less expensive and better for racing. It has been used in five events this season, all won by drivers for Hendrick Motorsports. The next COT race is June 3 at Dover, Del.

Most drivers have been critical of the COT, complaining about its handling and calling it difficult to drive, but they preferred going to one program.

“I don’t like doing two different cars -- it’s one or the other,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said this month. “I’d go full time to the COT right now. Why not? We’re all struggling with it. We might as well get all the time we can with it week in and week out, even if it drives us all crazy.”

But Jeff Gordon, winner of two COT races, is hesitant because the car has yet to race on a 1.5-mile track.

“Without being on a mile-and-a-half track, I don’t see how we can just go completely forward with it,” Gordon said. “I’m pretty optimistic about the way things are going right now. Obviously, we’re running good with it. But I still think there are things that need to evolve with this car that are not there yet.”

Humpy Wheeler, president of Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., estimates the COT will save teams $1 million per car annually, thus helping smaller teams compete.

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Dale Earnhardt Inc. dropped its appeal of penalties levied against Earnhardt and his crew chief for illegal modifications made to the COT.

The appeal was scheduled to be heard today, but the team informed NASCAR it would not fight the penalties.

Earnhardt was docked 100 points and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. was fined $100,000 and suspended six races after NASCAR discovered illegal brackets on the rear wing of the No. 8 Chevrolet at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.

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Two-time world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman bought a stake in Panther Racing, an Indy Racing League team that will field three cars in this weekend’s Indianapolis 500.

Terms of the purchase and the size of the stake won’t be disclosed, said Mike Kitchel, a spokesman for Indianapolis-based Panther.