Jeff Gordon Wins First Car of Tomorrow Race at Talladega
Sunday October 7, 2007
The 2007 UAW-Ford 500 was the first restrictor plate race for the Car of Tomorrow. No one was sure of what to expect when this less aerodynamic race car visited the aero-sensitive Talladega Superspeedway. To NASCAR's credit the new car was a non-factor as the race was much like every other restrictor plate race at Talladega.
Today's race shared many characteristics of other plate races. It was boring in the middle. It had an exciting finish. Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson found themselves battling each other for the checkered flag.
Comments
Yes it had a slow time in the middle. Nascar did not make a big deal out of the bumps to push the cars. I am glad Jeff won and sorry for the stupid engines from DEI for their drivers. I had hoped Jr. would have a good show today.
Yeah, like yipee, or maybe WHOOPDIDDYDOO. Typical NASCAR finish, typical DEI performance Typical DEGA. Enough of the “WELL DUH” news. Now for the real important news. How bout that Reutiman & Mikey dont laugh too hard. Andretti finished YAY!!!
Isnt the COT great? HMMMM!!
Isnt NASCAR great? HMMMM!!
I didn’t really expect this to be a great show due to the drivers being understandably cautious; anyone watching the pre-race interviews and the interviews following the ‘dega testing couldn’t have expected much different. The race was slow until the last 20 laps where it really picked up.
On the good side, the Car of Tomorrow did its primary job: safety. Nothing went airborne and Kyle Petty walked away from his extremely hard hit. The excitement of the last 10 laps was amazing; Smoke looking for anything and low then high and hanging himself out to dry only to fight back on the lower end, then high until Gordon gave him 3 choices: a push, a wall or another car. Watching JJ, Gordon and Smoke battling it out at the end with the Dodge cars making a last ditch run for it was just good racing.
On the bad side, I felt like, between the commercials, there was some racing coverage. I counted 4 commercial breaks in one yellow — sure there’s not much to watching cars go around at pace speeds, but they could let us in on some driver radio chatter or some analysis. Instead, it seemed we got a higher percentage of commercials than when the races are handled on other channels.
Tony had it! I kept walking around last night saying he had it, then it was gone. He did good I got to hand him that. But to be so close, I couldn’t even watch the after race stuff. If anybody out there feels like I do, please respond. Heartbroken in Indiana!
Happy for Jeff!! I think Nascar is killing it’s own series with the level of regulation. There is no longer for room for enginuity and creativity in the development of the cars. I am not sure why the auto manufactures even sponsor cars that don’t represent their label with anything more than a sticker. I predict Nascar will turn this series into the IROC with Nascar providing all the cars and engines before it is over. Wouldn’t want anyone to earn a competitive advantage now would we? That just wouldn’t be American…
I wasn’t home so I DVR the race. I started to watch it got bored so I fast foward it and I even still could tell it was a boring race. I’m just about done with nascar. Take thos stupid restrictor plates off, cot go carts don’t get me started.
Watched the start, got bored, watched football, tuned back in for the last 10 laps.
I was disapointed with ABC coverage at the end. seemed like they were in a hurry to cut coverage off at the top of the hour. They told viewers to tune into ESPN2 for post race coverage. Wonder what percentage of viewers have ESPN2? One of the big deals about ABC having coverage was that most everyone has ABC, but if you do not have ESPN2, you are screwed.
I have ESPN2 but turned football back on after ABC dropped coverage.
Lauren, I live 20 miles from Winchester speedway where Tony run a lot when he was a pup. Rushville rocket may ring a bell if you are old enough for that and Tony done well till the end then beat himself the last 10 laps. There was no # 2 car to blame this week, just poor driving on Tony’s part!
We drove 556 miles one way to go to K.C. last week to get soaked at the 2nd. rain delay so I consider myself a Smoke fan! Maybe he will get his head back on straight next week! Go Smoke!!
Hey guys – ALL sports (and tv in general)are over run with commercials these days! It all comes down to dollars for the networks. We have Direct TV & get all the ESPNs, TNTs, etc., but we also have “hotpass” we get control of what we hear & what(who) we want to watch.
During the entire race (and all those annoying commercials) we have the network coverage in a box on one part of the screen, then we have the hotpass coverage of the race that never goes away on the main screen, even during the commercials we’re still seeing the race. We can listen in on team communications during commercials w/the push of a button & change it back when the commercial is over if we choose. It has totally changed the sport for us – you can truly see and hear what’s going on ALL the time during the race & get a better idea of how each team works together…During the “boring” parts of the race we were listening to what the teams strategies were going to be as well as hearing from the drivers who had RCR motors what their fears were. And I don’t work for DTV – I’m just saying that there are things that can make the “less exciting” races alot better for the fans.
I know some people don’t even have cable – but if you have (or can get)direct tv, hotpass is MORE than worth the cost. I would do without my movie channels & alot more before I’ll go through a nascar season without hotpass now!!
To Lauren, … Heartbroken in Indiana about Smoke. Yup.. me too. He’s my favorite, but Jeff is my second choice.
Do you think all those people that said earlier in the year, “Jeff will be slowing down now that a baby is in the picture”, are now eating crow? He needs the money for Pampers!!!
Hey Lauren, I have to agree with you. It was heartbreaking to see Tony run so good, only to finish like he did. You have to hand it to the Hendricks team though. They didn’t show anyone what they had until the last 20 laps. Tony said he didn’t want to be in front for the final ten laps because you’re a sitting duck out there, but he didn’t have a choice.If he had moved over to let someone pass, he would have been passed by a freight train of cars. He tried to hold them off, and I think he did one h–ll of a job finishing where he did.
Thanks Smoke62! He did do a excellent job, there is always the next one. This time I won’t drink so much, the closer Tony got the more I drank on Sunday. Not a good thing for Monday morning. So until Saturday night have a good one all.
When NASCAR’s COT cars took the track at Talladega, they were at the outside of their limited engines envelopes. These cars that normally ran at 7000 rpm’s with resptrictor pates were doing 8700 and the RCR engine, not the DEI engines failed one after another. These cars needed extra horse power because of the new body design that is less areodynamic. All the testin in the world does not take the place of race conditions and these engines were wound too to last. Getting rid of the restrictor plates would have driven them over 10,000 rpm and more cars would have bitten the dust
Face it fans, NASCAR engines are not top notch designes like the Ferraris and the Mercedes of Formula One. gtose engines can go up to 19,000 rpm, but they don’t do that all lap long and all race long.
What NASCAR needs to do is get rid of the restrictor plates but make the engines top out at 7000 like the old ones do. F-1 went from 10 to 8 cylinder engines, maybe NASCAR needs to go from 8 to 6 cylinder engines. Better fuel mileage and durability at a slower speed.
You guys are hearing from the biggest diehead Smoke fan of all times. Every week I have him in a poole,I am remodling one of our rooms with guess what, Smoke merchandise. It makes me ill to see him get beat like he did last Week and at Kansas. He is so talented all he has to do is relax, drive and let it happen. Remember last year, #48 was down 150 pts. after the 5th race and still came back and won the Championship. Smoke fans don’t give up on him yet, if anyone can do it, SMOKE CAN!!