Roush: COT not a money-saver

Jack Roush said that teams won't be seeing the savings the Car of Tomorrow was supposed to generate in terms of production so long as NASCAR adheres to its stringent levels of tolerance. He says that's because slightly damaged bodies can't be repaired without massive repairs.

The Roush Fenway owner's explanation: "I absolutely feel that there will not be a net save to the teams based on the amount of money that goes into the cars to get the chassis the way that NASCAR wants it for it's inspection; then past the initial inspection, the amount of sheet metal that has to be replaced to fix a relatively small problem," Roush said.

"(Previously) we could have replaced the front snout and a front end of a car or a rear snout and a quarter panel, depending on the lick. Most of the relatively minor damage that the (Cars of Tomorrow) have had is going to retire a complete body because when you get the kind of shot into the body that causes a snout to bend, you almost always have some amount of distress that is put into the rest of the car. When we had reasonably wide-open, or relatively wide-open tolerances, you were able to let that tolerance be taken out by the effects of the crash. You can't do that now.

"The amount of precision that's required to get the sheet metal in order to pass the tech line is unprecedented. For the time being, we anticipate at least a 70 to 80-percent increase in labor that's required to keep these cars ready to go from one race to the next. I see a 20-percent reduction in the number of cars that's likely to be used and 80 to 100-percent more labor required, first of all to build the car and then get it through inspection in the first place, and then to repair it after it has the inevitable problem on the race track." USA Today