Is the C.O.T. Another Underdevelped Mistake?

With all the different issues that have risen since NASCAR mandated the C.O.T. for full time use last season, one of the biggest problems that the crew chiefs and engineers are having is getting the car to turn properly through the corners.

Or a better way to put it is, trying to get the car to enter and exit the corners as smoothly as possible, with as little to no body roll as possible.

The best example of body roll it is to get out your bathroom scale, and stand on it.

Then, without lifting your left foot, suddenly push your right foot down on the scale and watch how much the weight on the scale increases.

Did you feel how your body weight shifted, almost knocking you off the scale?

Now, while standing on the scale, put your arms straight out, and have someone pull down on your left or right arm, and look at the difference in the weight increase on the scale.

It’s not as much as pushing your foot down on the scale.

That’s body roll.

Now imagine how a 3800 pound car's weight shifts as its going around the corner?

That’s why most of the time the cars almost slide around the corners.

What NASCAR has done with the C.O.T. by moving the driver in four inches closer to the center of the car, is move the center of gravity closer to the center-right of the car, rather than the center-left side of the car, where it used to be.

Add in the softer springs, along with the under pressurized shocks that NASCAR mandated with the C.O.T., and you have a car that isn’t as balanced as the old car.

NASCAR has allowed the teams to offset the un-balance by adding a certain amount of tungsten steel weights to counter-balance the car and hopefully get it to turn more smoothly.

Another reason that NASCAR let the teams use the weights was because of the claw. The claw is the measuring device that NASCAR uses during tech inspection to make sure the cars are within specifications, as far as the car’s body angles are concerned. NASCAR no longer uses the 30+ templates to measure the body angles.

NASCAR also noticed that when the claw was fit over the entire body of the car, especially after practice.  One or more of the eight reference points weren’t touching, since most of the weight is on the right hand side of the car.

This is another reason that NASCAR allowed the teams to use the weights to balance out the car, thus avoiding the problems they were having getting the cars through tech.

Now back to the front scoop, or as NASCAR calls it, “The Splitter.”

It’s the new style front air dam that was replaced by the older version used on the older cars. This one is boxier, and does not have the same smooth front face like the old car had.

The splitter is also designed to be more effective at keeping the front end close to the ground, and it’s also supposed to prevent the car from not having as much travel as the old model had.

Travel is when the car is set up to lean forward when it goes into turns, which changes the attitude of the vehicle, so that the back end air is higher than in the front.

This produces more down force on the car and allows it to turn better, especially on the tracks that require the extra down force.

This is where aerodynamics come into play, because actually what the splitter is doing is causing a lot of air turbulence, and in essence, not letting the air run freely off it like it did with the old car's smoother air dam.

Turbulence is a very bad thing, especially with the speeds at which these heavy cars travel.

With its scoop-like configuration instead of the air flowing off of it like the air dam that was used before, the bottom lip is keeping the air from flowing off of it right away, and its keeping the air rolling around in the splitter and causing the car to act a lot differently than what it did last season.

The air needs to flow freely without any obstructions, and this was probably one of the problems that the crew chiefs didn’t think was going to be that big of an issue.

Now the teams are having problems trying to control the air flow.  You can see it week after week, by how much the front ends are bouncing as they enter and exit the corners.

NASCAR needs to let the teams use stiffer springs along with more pressure in the shocks, because it’s not being done by adding or removing spring rubbers.

With the stiffer shocks and springs, the suspension will at least have a chance to do what it was intended to do, and that is to absorb the bumps without restricting the natural bounce of the car.

Unlike adding a spring rubber, that just stiffens up the car without letting the car bounce naturally.

With the uneven air, it’s hard for the crew chiefs to make the right adjustments to keep the cars as balanced as possible.

This could also be one of the reasons why some of the drivers are blowing out right front tires, a lot more than before the C.O.T. was introduced.

NASCAR also needs to realize that what might work for other racing series doesn’t necessarily mean it will work here.

The splitter/spoiler combination that NASCAR mandated with the C.O.T. worked well in the other racing series because they ran all of their races on road courses, but air turbulence isn’t as critical as it is on the high speed ovals that NASCAR races on.

Once you add in the weight factor that the cars carry in the Sprint Cup Series, balance and a smooth, clean flow of air is of the utmost importance, separating the good from the bad races.

I guess we can chalk this up as another reason why the C.O.T. is way underdeveloped, and why NASCAR should have spent more time working out the kinks on their time, instead of ours.