New Race Car Unveiled During Winning Chevy Weekend
By Alba Colon
GM Racing program manager, NASCAR Nextel Cup Series
This was a fantastic weekend! Not too many weekends come along where you win every possible event.
Chevy teams were definitely the ones to beat in Memphis and Atlanta. Kevin Harvick won his eighth Busch Series race of the season while Mike Bliss scored Chevy’s first truck series win since July. Martin Truex, Jr. won the last IROC race of the year on Saturday and Tony Stewart was awarded the IROC championship. Tony capped off a Chevy weekend sweep by climbing the flag stand in Atlanta to accept the checkered flag after his Nextel Cup win on Sunday.
Tony’s win of the Bass Pro Shops 500 was the 21st Team Chevy victory in 2006. With three races to go, we only need one more win to tie our own record for the most wins during one season (in NASCAR’s modern era, 1972 to now). Chevy first achieved 22 wins in one season in 1980 and again in 2004 so it would be very exciting to tie and possibly surpass that record in these final three races.
Although we had fun celebrating this weekend, we are still very focused on the big picture - winning the drivers championship. In Atlanta we gained ground on the championship, cutting (Matt) Kenseth’s lead from 36 to 26 points over Jimmie Johnson. To win this championship a driver must be consistent. So far Matt Kenseth has been consistent in the first seven races - but as I say every week, this championship is still anybody’s game.
Thanks again for all your comments, feedback and questions. I wanted to respond to a question that Jamie posted last week. Jamie, you heard right that the Impala will return to NASCAR. This weekend we unveiled the Impala SS race car that will be Chevrolet’s Car of Tomorrow. The Impala SS will make its racing debut in March at Bristol and will share Chevy racing duties with the Monte Carlo SS in ‘07 and ‘08 until its first full season in ‘09.
Since NASCAR announced that the manufacturers will run two cars next year, Chevy decided to bring back the Impala as its Car of Tomorrow. The Impala is an extremely popular and high-selling Chevy model, and as Jamie pointed out, it has also had its share of racing success with back-to-back NASCAR championships in the early ’60s.
Ever since we took the cover off the Impala SS in Atlanta it has been well received. I am very encouraged from what we’ve done so far and am already excited for next year with a new nameplate for the Car of Tomorrow races and our new engine package.
This weekend we travel to Texas, a track that has not been one of my favorites. Our last win there was in 2000, so I’m hoping we can turn things around. Our teams have been working very hard for this race, so thanks for your continued support!
- Posted in Cars & Trucks
Chris
The Car of Tomorrow will ruin NASCAR.
Joe D, Cleveland
So, this seals the fate of the production Monte Carlo. There was a time when NASCAR vehicles and their production counterparts shared more than just the fact it has 4 tires and a steering wheel, and it wasn’t that long ago (heck, Darrel Waltrip’s Mountain Dew Buick Regal was an actual Buick Regal, front end, rear end, wheel base, and frame, and that was only 20 years ago).
Oh, well. NASCAR has lost some of those of us who are purists, who believed that the car driven had to have at least 500 per year produced for consumers. Now, those cars are nothing more than fast advertising billboards. They all have the same basic designs, they are made by a select few motorsport companies, they don’t use a single part from a prodction vehicle of the same name, and you really can’t tell them appart. GM, Ford, and DCX no longer race. It’s Hendricks Motorsports and Joe Gibb’s racing team and Dale Earnhart Enterprises. GM just pays to paint a section of real estate on the front bumper with the word “Impala”.
André
In other countries, the races used to be ran by real stock-cars other times are beggining to suffer from the same disease that affected NASCAR. In my country (Brazil), because of the demise of the Omega A, there wasn’t any locally-built RWD production car to race. So, they did the same that NASCAR: space-frame chassis using templates that resemble street cars only a little bit. First, there were only “Vectras”, then “Astras” and after a long time of a single manufacturer competition, they went into the multibrand business. But it was only the template that changes (it can be an “Astra”, a “Lancer” or even a “Jetta IV”). Under the skin, all of them are powered by the same engine (a small-block V8 Chevy-sourced). So, if NASCAR is getting worse and worse, the Brazilian Stock-car racing is even worse than this, because in the reality is the same monobrand cathegory that was since 1979, but now completely dissociated from the street.
People have to think that its not only the spectacle-for-spectacle mentality that is ruining some motorsports, but also some rules made suposely to bring competitivity in short terms, but a tragedy in the long. Not only NASCAR, but other are suffering from the same disease, as we can see in DTM, that more and more is getting far from the street-cars to be only something that barely remember those gold days of before.
The thing people that make street-cars competition have to realize is that we not only watch these races to see the skills of a driver, but also expect to know if those mundane rides perform well in tracks and also transfer the development to our today commuters to be safer, more economical and even funnier to drive. What can be applied from a space-frame that has only a template over it and its mechanicals ar very far from what we see in our ways? Hey, a good real production race car will generate a better street one and will also amplify the win-on-Sunday-sell-on-Monday effect even between people that doesn’t know so much about motorsports. So, it’s more than time to get rid from these space-frame-pretenders-of-real-street-cars to come back to the original proposal and get from it its best to apply in a future in street cars and also create the group of race fans of a brand. If Ferrari has a lot of tifosi in all the planet, it’s because they know how close the brand that they see in tracks is from their street-cars and how much of the competition lab is applied in real life context…
C.R.
Does this mean the end of the monte carlo?
J.Crew
Please don’t turn this blog into Nascar central… there are enough websites and marketing garbage dedicated to this sport that it would be a shame if you sold this blog out to it as well. Please keep it focused on the business side of GM, not the marketing of badge and sticker engineered low tech race cars that have no relation to production based vehicles.
Alex
Lately there has been too much stuff about race cars in this blog. Has GM solved all the other product issues!
Sundown
Alba:
You mention the early ’60’s Impala’s success. That was a REAL car. Today’s NASCAR Impala has nothing in common with the Impala in my driveway. The days of “Win on Sunday sell on Monday” are gone. NASCAR seems specifically designed (identical cars) so that no manufacturer or driver has the ability to dominate the races. It would seriously crimp their marketing muscle if that did happen.
At least next year Toyota will be wasting their money on NASCAR too.
Paul
Most people I know don’t drive as fast as possible, only turn left, and have a pit crew waiting for them when they get home.
If there were a racing league that involved parallel parking, running errands, and bucking traffic while limiting the amount of time and money spent at the pump, then you might have something.
gacSTclass
I like the looks. Until or if the NASCAR officials decide the Impala SS aerodynamics have an unfair advantage, this will be a much better look for the cars.
The current Monte Carlos, sad to say, look nothing like the cars at my Chevy dealer, emphasizing the fakery.
Franknic
I hope this doesn’t mean that GM is dropping the Monte from Chevys lineup in 09.
Mulula
This is kinda of a wrong place to put information about racing because not a log of people really leave comments on it so maybe leave the space for car talk which we come for here.just an obsevation that you can think about
Ted
NASCAR race cars back when Impalas were raced actually shared some components with the Impalas on the street. Today’s car’s aren’t Fords, Chevys, or Pontiacs, they just have bodies that remotely resemble a make’s car body. Just like the Funny Cars at the drags.
BRE
Hey to gacSTclass, And you think the Impala SS looks like the nascar Impala ? If you think ANY of the nascar cars look like the factory products, let me borrow your glasses. I am starting to get some bad feelings about this whole nascar body business, we are starting to turn this sport into a real “side show”. I think we need to get back to basics, How about just letting the teams build and race what they “brung” again. No that will never work, there is to much “money” in it now.
gacSTclass
There is a motorsport GM participates in that is close to “run what you brung”.
Its called the Grand Am Cup, and modifications are strictly limited from production cars.
When GM pays some attention to this sport at the corporate level, we may actually see it show up here in the Fastlane Blog…
Christophe
I also liked the days better, when stock cars bore a real ressemblance with what was in the dealer showrooms. I guess that vintage racing is about to have a great succes because of many people thinking just that. I’d love to see my 1986 NASCAR Monte Carlo back on a racetrack!
Jake
Did you see who is sponsoring Milka Duno in the Rolex 24 hour race at daytona?
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/080122/0350925.html