Motor Sports Weekly News

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Dodge became the second manufacturer to unveil its new NASCAR Nationwide Series entry, taking the wraps off the No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge Challenger for driver Justin Allgaier Friday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Ford unveiled its Mustang earlier this month at Roush Fenway Racing. The Nationwide car of tomorrow will appear in four races in 2010, with full implementation in 2011.

Dodge brought back its Challenger model this year, and Dodge officials said running the “pony car” in the Nationwide Series should help sales of the street version.

“We’re very proud of the look of the car,” said Dave Bailey, senior manager of Dodge motorsports engineering and SRT Body, Interior and Electrical. “It’s great looking. We’ve maximized the brand identity of the vehicle, as well as achieve the aero parity. We feel this is the right opportunity to showcase the Dodge Challenger in this series as the Challenger came back to the market in 2009.”

Dodge and Ford are the only carmakers to use pony cars for its Nationwide cars of tomorrow. GM and Toyota will continue to use the Impala and Camry brands respectively.

“It looks like a race car,” Penske Racing President Tim Cindric said, “but it also really relates to what’s on the streets right now.”

Penske Racing is the only Dodge team in the Nationwide Series that will get factory support, and it is expanding to two cars for 2010, this one for Allgaier and the No. 22 for Brad Keselowski.

Dodge officials said the current Charger will be used in the non-COT races next year.

Ford’s new Nationwide Series Mustang also made its on-track debut at Talladega on Monday. The two cars participated in a NASCAR test to determine the size of the tapered spacer required to achieve the speeds they want and also to settle on a rear axle gear ratio.  Drivers Colin Braun and Ricky Stenhouse Jr made some laps alone and some drafting laps and both liked the way the car handled. Jeff Burton and Matt Kenseth also had the chance to log some laps in the Mustang and reported that the car drove better than the current nationwide car.

It may not look exactly like a production Mustang but it’s a good looking car and it will help to bring a unique identity to the series.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 8:05 am and is filed under Las Vegas, Nationwide Series, Atlanta, Toyota, NASCAR, Earnhardt, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.