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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Friday Atlanta Notebook
Chevy rolls out Impala badge.
Ben Blake  | http://www.racer.com  |  Posted October 27, 2006   Hampton, Ga.
Jimmie Johnson (L) and NASCAR Oval Track operations manager Pat Suhy unveil the 'Car of Tomorrow' Chevrolet Impala SS at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images/Rusty Jarrett)

Friday afternoon, Chevrolet officials rolled a NASCAR "Car of Tomorrow" in out of the rain and christened it an Impala SS. No matter how they squinted or stretched their imaginations, few in the room could see much Impala to it.

Nevertheless, the Chevrolet people announced that its teams' "cars of tomorrow" would be called Impalas beginning in 2007. NASCAR plans to use the CoT at 16 races next season; the more-standard cars for the other 20 events will retain the older Monte Carlo nameplate.

Impala is Chevrolet's best-selling current model, and company officials saw marketing value in putting the brand on NASCAR's experimental race car, to make its debut next year at Bristol. "We're aligning our best-selling model with what's on the race track," Chevy program manager Pat Suhy said.

Suhy said Chevrolet engineers had worked with NASCAR from the start on the CoT project and had made suggestions that were incorporated in it. He said the larger panels, such as roof, decklid and hood, would be stamped and delivered to the teams by Chevrolet.

"We got as much of the Impala in the car as we could, within NASCAR's guidelines," Suhy said. He admitted, however that "at this point, there's enough commonality in the cars that marketing is what drives the brand name."

Fans likely are aware of the current Impala model, and older fans certainly know of the original Impala, introduced for the street in model year 1958. Impala headed Chevrolet's sequence of model steps, with the low-end Biscayne, the mid-range Bel Air, and the top-line Impala.

Impala drivers Rex White and Ned Jarrett won NASCAR championships in 1960 and 1961, and the model was used intermittently through the 1960s, as General Motors at least attempted to adhere to the factories' non-racing covenants.

From the early 1970s on, the plentiful Monte Carlo supplanted the Impala, and over nearly 35 years became the most-winning badge name in NASCAR history. The Monte Carlo, through several re-designs was Chevrolet's NASCAR brand, superseded briefly in the early 1990s by the Lumina model.

There is word that Dodge also is working to rename its CoT entries. The Charger would continue on the standard cars, with a new model name in the works for the new car.

David Ragan, whose Cup entry for this weekend's Bass Pro Shops 500 was pulled down by NASCAR after a difficult run last week at Martinsville, sounded truly contrite Friday. He will run as planned in Saturday's Craftsman Truck race, but his big-track Cup debut will be postponed for at least a week.

Ragan said he called immediately to apologize to veteran Ken Schrader, victim of a Ragan-caused wreck 334 laps into the Martinsville race. He said he had had no idea how to contact Tony Stewart, also involved, who had later referred to the rookie as a "dart without feathers."

Ragan bid $5,750 at a children's charity auction Thursday for a chance to ride around with Stewart before Sunday's 500. "I'll just introduce myself to him so that if I step out of line in the future he'll come and talk to me about it," the 20-year-old said.

Ragan is due to take over for departing Mark Martin in Roush Racing's No. 6 next season.

The kid said it's all a part of learning. "We grew up in Legends cars racing 25 laps as hard as we could go," he said Friday. "It's hard to get in a car and take it easy for a couple laps.

"I'm trying to keep my job at Roush Racing, trying to run as fast as i can. That's something I've got to work on and get better. I've got to know when to put in 100pct and when to put in 95."

Adding to the embarrassment, Champ Car refugee A.J. Allmendinger, also with no NASCAR big-track experience, would have been allowed to race Sunday, except that rain wiped out Friday's time trials. Allmendinger also will run in the Truck race.

"I don't like it one bit," Ragan confessed. "[But] I've got a lot of respect for A.J. He's done an excellent job in the Truck series, and I hope I can be out on the track racing with him."

He said NASCAR's scrub of his entry "got my attention, loud and clear."

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