Welcome to the Caaaarrrr of Tomoooorrrrrooooowww!

Last weekend marked the debut of NASCAR's hopelessly misnamed "Car of Tomorrow" in the Nextel Cup. In spite of the name and the hype, the car is decades out of date compared to other modern race cars or, indeed, the average street car. As David Phillips points out over at SpeedTV.com:

Nor did the . . . 'Car of Tomorrow' provide much solace for those hoping NASCAR will reverse field on more than five decades of technophobia. With their carburetors, rudimentary electronics and acres of sheetmetal, the CoT’s closest brush with contemporary (let alone future) automotive trends are its Avenger-, Camry-, Fusion- and Impala-headlight/grill decals.

As Phillips makes clear, the real cars of tomorrow were on display at other locales:

Leading off, alphabetically and chronologically, was an ALMS’ Twelve Hours of Sebring themed on motorsports’ linkages to the automotive industry. Whether it’s the GT2 Porsches that spend part of their gestation on the production line with the 911 Carreras, Targas and Turbos destined for your local doctor, lawyer or hedge fund manager, or the ALMS’ commitment to alternative fuels now (be it “clean” diesel or E10) and in the future (E50 within 18 to 24 months; bio-diesel and perhaps hydrogen fuel later), Sebring celebrated racing as an incubator/proving ground for cutting-edge technology with direct applications to the broader automotive industry.

* * *

If anything, the [IRL] XM Satellite Radio 300 IndyCar race was even 'greener' than the 'Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.' From the Honda Hybrid pace car and all 20 Honda-powered Dallaras running on pure ethanol to Jeff Simmons’ sound bite on ABC’s 'World News Tonight' that he prefers 'getting our fuel from the Midwest rather than the Middle East,' the IndyCar season opener was cloaked in green . . .

What's NASCAR got that the ALMS and IRL lack? Fans. And lots of them. Sadly.