Mike Helton became NASCAR's President in 2000. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Gary Nelson was the COT designer. His concept was to put an end to “aero push” by removing nearly 20 percent of the downforce with changes to the body and by the removal of the rear spoiler in favor of a rear wing. The extended rear quarterpanels and the end plates on the wing, meanwhile, provided enough side force in the corners to prevent a 20-percent drop in over-all lap speeds.

Nelson hoped that teams would need to rely more on mechanical grip to get through the corners. Teams have indeed resorted to many different tactics with anti-roll bars, bump stops, shocks and coil-bound front springs. But they continue to rely on aerodynamics for cornering speeds despite the considerable reduction in downforce.

It’s like the old adage about once the genie is out of the bottle and the difficulty of putting it back in. Despite the loss in downforce and an increase in right-side weight caused by safety features, the successful teams are still relying primarily on aerodynamics for cornering speed with little leeway for getting it right or wrong. Getting it right on the pit road during races also remains difficult.

The relatively abysmal records of Roush Fenway Racing and Richard Childress Racing in 2009 underscored the problem even veteran teams have experienced in hitting the right combination with the COT chassis.

It’s worth pointing out that the racing in mid-pack – where the aerodynamics are unsettled by so much dirty air – is incredibly furious and full of overtaking as drivers fight to get back to the cleaner air up front.

If this year’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway was any indication, more teams (particularly Roush and Childress) are figuring out how to make the COT work in order to get to the clean air at the front. The double-file restarts and pit lane tactics have helped contribute to more competitive racing as well, although to some extent they disguise the technical conundrum.

Tire development from Goodyear, which has come up with a more durable yet softer left side tire, and drivers who have gotten used to a car that is more difficult to turn in the middle of the corners, have also helped the COT, if only by reducing the verbal complaints about it from the cockpit.

In the end, much of the perception of the COT comes down to just that, perception.

Given it’s ungainly appearance and the arrival of what is regarded as an attractive new generation of Nationwide Series cars, appearance alone could be the biggest hurdle of them all for the COT to overcome no matter how well it performs.

Quotes of the week: We caught up with NASCAR President Mike Helton shortly before the end of the season and asked him about the COT and overtaking.

RacinToday: The teams seem to be getting better compliance out of the front end of the COT by doing things with the anti-roll bars, bump stops and so forth. Do you think that’s led to better racing and will we continue to see more of that?

Helton: I would say the continuity of this car has allowed the teams to do things within the regulations that we allow them to do, which is a small band. The box we’ve built around (the regulations) was done on purpose. The continuity with this car has given teams the time and the ability to learn the chemistry and architecture and the tastes of the drivers, which differs. That along with earlier this year giving them the ability to implement the adjustments around the sway bar, those things have helped a good deal with the latitude it takes to customize the feeling of a racecar.

RacinToday: Good teams will figure it out over time and will figure it out at different rates. That’s probably not a bad thing.

Helton: History shows us that the nature of our garage area is someone figures out something first and then everybody else catches up with it. That goes in part behind the philosophy of building the box very small to play in. When somebody finds something, others can catch up with it much quicker.

RacinToday: We’ve seen that passing and overtaking have changed over the years in the sport. What’s your take on passing and overtaking in general across different tracks?

Helton: I think the level of quality in the garage today is much deeper, which puts most teams very close to each other. You see it in qualifying speeds and race speeds. There’s a wide range of tracks in the Sprint Cup Series. You will see the drivers’ ability play out at different levels at different race tracks. You also see at different race tracks the machine part of it making a much bigger difference and the parity of those machines. I think it starts with the fact that the parity is so much deeper. People say they liked it in the old days, but in the old days guys were winning by four or five laps.

Quick hit: During the holiday season’s multitude of college bowl games and NFL match-ups, TV cameras often caught sections of open seats. But you don’t hear nearly as much about attendance problems in college or pro football as in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup.

The opinion here: both football and the Sprint Cup are suffering from being over-built in the last 10 years, in no small part because both share a “big event” mentality.

See ya! …At the races.

Jonathan Ingram has been writing full-time about the world’s major motor racing series and events since 1983 for newspapers, magazines and web sites.

John can be reached at jingram@racintoday.com

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel