Drivers Divided on Car of Tomorrow

Kyle Busch celebrates at the finish line after winning the NASCAR Nextel Cup Food City 500 auto race in Bristol, Tenn., Sunday, March 25, 2007. (AP Photo/John Russell) (John Russell - AP)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- There's a comfort level behind the wheel of your own car, a familiarity that sometimes makes it easier to break the speed limit, blow through a red light or cut off another driver. That feeling often disappears in a borrowed car. It takes time to adjust to the vehicle, so the driver is a bit more cautious. Maybe that's how the top talent in NASCAR felt Sunday when the Car of Tomorrow debuted at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The car was big and boxy, some might even say ugly. It looked different from their normal cars and felt nothing like what they were used to. And it turned what's normally a rough-and-tumble race into a rather ho-hum affair.

"I can't stand to drive them," race-winner Kyle Busch said after beating Jeff Burton in a last-lap sprint to the finish line. "I didn't see any highlights out there."

"The car was terrible," he added. "It's hard to set up and it's hard to drive. I don't remember anyone complaining about the old ones. I told my team before the race that I hoped I could win it so that I could tell everybody how bad it is."

There was initial skepticism when NASCAR chose Bristol as the first venue for the COT. Because the 0.533-mile oval is so tight, the beating and banging typically begins the moment the green flag flies.

Because teams worried the COT would fall apart on impact, everyone believed the track would be littered with splitters and rear wings.

But as NASCAR closed in on the debut, Bristol actually began to make sense. Since the track routinely produces such thrilling racing, would anyone even notice the COT was out there?

Initially, no. When the race began, everything appeared rather ordinary.

Then Tony Stewart humiliated the field, opening an insurmountable four-second lead as he dominated the first half of the race.

Big, bad Bristol suddenly became a snooze-fest.

There was no swapping of sheet metal, no bump-and-runs and very little banging. Of the 15 cautions, only three were for multicar accidents.

Even Mark Martin, who ended his streak of 621 straight races to watch Bristol from his living room, noticed how calm things were.