NASCAR going to pony cars?
By: Drew Hierwarter
There has been a consistent rumor circulating around the NASCAR community for the last few months that the cars for the 2009 Nationwide Series (formerly the Busch Series) will be significantly different than the cars currently being used. The idea was to make them different enough from the Sprint Cup cars that teams would be less inclined to cross over. Before the introduction of the COT in Nextel cup this year, the only real difference between the cars of the two series was five inches of wheelbase, the Busch cars being 105” while the “Cup” cars were 110”. This made it advantageous for Nextel Cup teams to run the Saturday Busch races to gain more information about what track conditions might be like on Sunday. The result of this has been Busch races with as many as two thirds of the cars being fielded by Nextel Cup teams or teams with strong Nextel Cup support.
What NASCAR is rumored to have planned for 2009 was for the junior series to run pony cars. Cars like the Ford Mustang, Chevy’s new Camaro, and the new Dodge Challenger. Now a source within Ford Motor Company has reported that the motorsports division expects to be running the Mustang in 2009 Nationwide Series races and has plans in place to do exactly that. This is the first confirmation we have seen of this change in the Nationwide Series cars. Rumors also persist that Dodge is already at work on a NASCAR version of their new “retro” Challenger. There has been no such confirmation from Chevrolet about their Camaro but some suggest that they would rather race that car in the ALMS series replacing the Corvette. NASCAR’s move to pony cars could also cause a problem for Toyota as their Camry Solara has not been selling well and will be discontinued after the 2008 model. They have a new Celica sports coupe planned for the European market in 2009 and that could be the model they race over here.
In the opinion of this writer this is a great move on NASCAR’s part and something that needed to be done. This will only work, however, if the NASCAR versions of the Nationwide cars end up looking more like the cars they are supposed to be than what NASCAR has been running lately. If they really look like Mustangs, Camaros, and Challengers, the fans will get behind it. If, like the new Sprint Cup cars, they all look the same and none really look like anything you can buy, nobody will care.