COT at Martinsville

NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow is here. It's next test will be this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.
Kyle Busch will go down in history as being the first driver to win a Nextel Cup Series race in the Car of Tomorrow. And he will go down in history as probably being the most disgruntled winner in NASCAR.
He had nothing nice to say about the car after winning Sunday's race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that the Car of Tomorrow has created a culture shock in NASCAR.
"It doesn't have the same handling characteristics as the old car, so all of the adjustments and all of the changes that you need to make are a learning experience each lap," said Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Inc. "It reminds me of my rookie year in 2000, when we came from the Busch Series and all of a sudden we had to learn how to make a much different car do the things we liked or were used to before. It takes some time, but we'll be fine. DEI has been working really hard with a lot of test sessions at places like South Boston (Va.) to try and learn what the car likes on a short track like Martinsville."
Earnhardt Jr. finished fourth in the Martinsville race a year ago. He got caught up in two accidents and had to nurse a badly damaged car to the finish.
"We've always been strong at Martinsville, and all I want or expect from my guys is that we're in the ballpark when we unload that car," Earnhardt Jr. said. "If we're close, then we're going to be all right. Get me in the ballpark and I'll drive that thing as hard as I can. The mindset at Martinsville is a lot like Bristol or at a road course: you try to stay out of trouble and survive until the last 100 laps, and then you go racin' to see who's gonna take home the trophy. Last year at this race, we got caught in someone else's mess in the first few laps and still managed to get a top-five finish with a car that was beaten to within an inch of its life. It was cool, but I don't want to have to do that again."