Hold on to your butts, people. Ford Racing and Roush Fenway Racing have unveiled their new stock car based on the poniest of pony cars. Prior to this, Ford teams in NASCAR have driven Fusions. Well, all right, none of them were actual Fusions or will be actual Mustangs. Rather, they'll be normal stock cars like everyone else in NASCAR drives that are covered with enough stickers and fake grilles to make you think that you might be looking at a Mustang from the stands. Man, "stock car" has really become a contradiction in terms.
Now you won't see Mustangs turning left next week in Charlotte at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The new car will compete in four races next year and only in the Nationwide Series, not the Sprint Cup. As such, it won't be based on the Car of Tomorrow platform that the Sprint Cup series uses, but rather the newer, different Car of Tomorrow platform designed specifically for the Nationwide Series. This first new Mustang to race in the Nationwide Series will be the No. 16 Con-way Freight Mustang driven by Colin Braun for Roush Fenway Racing. Is it enough to make us love NASCAR? Not quite, but if we had to race a bathtub on wheels, we'd pick this one.
Holy Schnikeys! Check it out, a NASCAR race car that actually bears a passing resemblance to the production car it pretends to be. Just like its big brother series, the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the newly minted Nationwide Series (formerly known as the Busch Series) is getting its own Car of Tomorrow for the 2009 season. The Nationwide Series cars, as you can see in our gallery below, will use more than just stickers to convince fans they're looking at a Dodge, Ford, Chevy or Toyota. The new cars, which will now share a 110-inch wheelbase with the Sprint Cup cars, actually have some definition in their shapes. Unlike the Sprint Cup cars, however, they'll continue to use rear spoilers instead of large rear wings. Based on the pics below, it appears that Dodge will be campaigning Challengers, Ford will use either the Taurus or Fusion, Toyota the Camry, and Chevy's choice is still unknown. The Nationwide Series just finished its first day of testing the new cars yesterday at Richmond International Raceway and have rolled them out again for a short test today. Drivers and team owners appear to be enthusiastic about the new cars. That's a markedly different reaction than NASCAR got when it debuted the Car of Tomorrow in the Spring Cup Series, which was largely derided by drivers at the outset.
