Since it won't be implemented entirely until next season, NASCAR's so-called Car of Tomorrow remains known by its futuristic name. But don't be fooled. It'll have a huge say on who becomes the champion of today.

"I think that you have to have a good Car of Tomorrow program if you want to win this championship," contender Kurt Busch said this week. "The Car of Tomorrow is important."

It's important in part because the COT will be the car used in five of the 10 races that comprise the Chase for the Nextel Cup, including the playoff-opening Sylvania 300 set for Sunday at New Hampshire International Speedway. With such a short window in which to accumulate points, a driver and his team can't afford to lag behind and lose ground in half of those critical contests.

But it's also important because of what it's already wrought. Based on the winners of the 11 COT races to date, it seems those who failed to figure out the new car also failed to find a way into the Chase, with seven different qualifiers combining to claim the checkers in 10 of those contests.

Juan Pablo Montoya's road-course run at Sonoma was the only exception, while the rest of the wins were dispersed among four teams. Led by Jimmie Johnson's three and Jeff Gordon's two, as well as Kyle Busch's triumph in the initial COT event, Hendrick Motorsports led the way with six wins. Joe Gibbs Racing had a few near-misses, and still wound up with two thanks to single triumphs for Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart, while Carl Edwards and Martin Truex Jr. gave victories to Roush-Fenway and Dale Earnhardt Inc., respectively.

That covers four of the six teams represented in the Chase - leaving Richard Childress Racing and Penske Racing South on the outside in search of answers. Busch is the lone Penske driver alive, and though he seems headed in the right direction with his COT program after posting an average finish of 8.7 in his last three races, the RCR trio hasn't been as encouraging.

Between Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick, the team has typically finished about 18th in its last three COT starts, and has just two top 10s during that time. That could doom them to disaster over these final 10 races, or, if they straighten things out sooner than later, they could close the gap widened by their earlier struggles.

Either way, tomorrow's car will certainly matter - now.

"For the most part the guys that are in the Chase are the ones that have been so strong with the Car of Tomorrow," Hamlin reaffirmed. "... I think that's all going to be wiped clean."

Truckin' along tightly

Although the Cup Chase manipulates the point system in order to close the gap between contenders, it still couldn't narrow the gap as near as the Craftsman Truck Series has done naturally on the way to New Hampshire.

Heading in to Saturday's New Hampshire 200, Ron Hornaday Jr. owns a four-point lead over Mike Skinner - a fifth the size of Jimmie Johnson's edge over Jeff Gordon - and the two are as tight at the top as any pair in series history after 17 races.

Skinner had held the season's biggest lead when he opened a 164-point bulge after winning at Kentucky in mid-July, but Hornaday has reeled him in with three top-two finishes in the four races since, and finally surged to the top when Skinner skidded his way to 28th place in the most recent run. Skinner will seek to rectify that, and regain his lead, with a win this weekend in Loudon; if he's able to do so, he'll extend the track's run to 12 races without a repeat winner.

"If we're going down, we're going down swinging, fighting, biting, scratching, kicking, gouging or whatever we've got to do," Skinner told SPEED TV. "We're not going to lose the championship because we laid down."

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