NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: 2013 Cars Show Great Promise
NASCAR is spending a lot of time at the Windshear wind tunnel in Concord, N.C. …
Tom Jensen  |  Posted November 07, 2012   Charlotte, NC
The 2013 Sprint Cup Series Toyota Camry looks much more like its production counterpart. (Photo: SPEED)
While the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship builds to what looks like it will be an epic finish, behind the scenes there is critical work going on for next year.

In 2013, NASCAR will introduce a new generation of Sprint Cup cars, which will be an interesting mix of old and new. The new cars will still be based on the chassis that NASCAR adopted in 2007 when it was introduced as the Car of Tomorrow.

But the bodies will be radically different.

And, it is hoped, much better in two critical areas: First, the 2013 Ford Fusion, Toyota Camry and Chevrolet SS will look much more like their production counterparts, and second, they should race much better at the faster 1.5-mile tracks, something fans have been clamoring for.

This week, NASCAR spent two days running a closed test at Charlotte Motor Speedway with the new cars. NASCAR and the three automakers are also spending a tremendous amount of time with the new cars at the Windshear wind tunnel, a $40 million state-of-the-art, 180-mile-per-hour, rolling-road wind tunnel in Concord, N.C.

So far, the early returns are encouraging.

“We’re seeing some things that definitely show some potential,” said Andy Graves, vice president of chassis engineering for TRD, U.S.A., Toyota’s racing arm in the United States. “ … I think anything that we can do to make the cars drive better and increase the mechanical grip is always going to be a good thing.”

When NASCAR introduced the COT in 2007, it was met with a lot of criticism from fans and the media for its appearance, and from drivers for its handling characteristics and aero push. The 2013 car will go a long way to addressing those issues. The new bodies are huge improvements aesthetically, and the cars should race much better as well.

“It goes back to us spending more time getting the car closer developed when he hand the car off,” said NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton. “It’ll be a far, far better race car to start off with and then the teams will take it and take it to the next level.”

Pemberton said making the car race better is a huge priority.

“We do know that most of the aggravation, if you listen to a driver, is what it does in traffic and how to pass cars,” Pemberton said of the current cars. “ … That’s what we’re concentrating on.”

Most importantly, perhaps, the car will be a lot better out of the box than the COT was.

“This car will be a lot closer than the other one by — I can’t even put a number on it,” said Pemberton, adding that NASCAR has worked extremely closely with teams and manufacturers to get the 2013 cars right.

“We’re not just pouring it in their hands and hoping,” said Pemberton, "because hope isn’t a plan. We’re trying to get it as close as we can when we get there.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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