McReynolds Quotes from COT Test
“The world didn’t come to an end and the earth didn’t start spinning backwards. Honestly, we talked with over 50 teams here, and if we were here with the current car, I’m not so sure we wouldn’t have had just as many incidents, if not more incidents. It’s been a pretty trouble-free test. And when I stood in the corner, I saw the same thing we’d see with the current car – race cars going around the race track and crews trying to make their race car go faster."
“Well over a year ago, when the Car of Tomorrow was introduced to the teams, all the talk and all the buzz was about the rear wing. But through the first day of testing at Bristol, I haven’t heard a person even say a thing about the rear wing. All the talk has been about the new front splitter. Now, the way this splitter works – certainly you want it fairly close to the ground, but you don’t want it right against the ground and you certainly don’t want it bottoming out, especially at a race track as rough as Bristol. So, you might say OK, what do you do … you just raise the car up to keep it from bottoming out. Not that easy … because for the first time, NASCAR is not only mandating a minimum ground clearance, they are mandating a maximum ground clearance. This splitter cannot be more than four and a half inches from the ground. So, what do you do if you can’t raise the car up? … Front springs – that’s going to be the big item (at Bristol). Last year, with the current car, teams were getting a softer front spring – maybe like a 600 or 700 pound spring in the left front … maybe 1,000 or 1,100 pounds in the right front. What they’ve had to do here to keep the splitter of the ground today is almost double the spring rate … that sounds simple enough, just throw two front springs in it … no, its like a package deal. One thing they have to do once they stiffen the front strings is maybe go to a smaller sway bar, anti-roll bar … and since you are not traveling as much, now you get into geometry changes. Maybe you have to out a shorter A-arm to increase the camber gain … maybe you have to put more static in, lean the right front in, lean the left front out … it’s all part of a package deal. What I am seeing here at the first day of testing at Bristol is all the work has been in the front. They haven’t even started with the back yet."