by Lee Spencer

Updated: March 15, 2008, 11:17 PM EST 170 comments

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Take a walk through the garage and gauge the owners' response to how much money has been dumped into the process, not to mention scrapped sheet metal. For the midsize teams, $10 million was nothing. For an uber power like Hendrick Motorsports, the estimates were closer to $20 million.

Because they want to win, the most solid teams will spend that extra dollar — or thousands of dollars — to pick up one-tenth of a second of speed. And that won't change as the teams continue to acclimate to the new car.

"It's closed the competition up much tighter, for sure," said Jeff Gordon, who will start second in the Food City 500. "If you look at just lap times, you look at a much tighter group of cars. It's just made the crew chiefs have to go to a whole different area of tuning. We're doing a lot of our set-ups in simulation now and they're spending so much more time trying to develop these bump stops (bumpers on the chassis that limit suspension travel). You hear me talking about bump stops. The biggest change in our sport over the last year is bump stops.

"We're trying to find manufacturers in Dubai — I don't know, I'm just joking, but trying to figure out how to recreate rubber and plastics and things to make spring rate in the right front. To make it act somewhat like a spring, or better than a spring. And there's so much money, technology and development going into these things it's ridiculous. It's mainly because we're having to do it over 3½ inches of travel, and so it's challenging us more so than we've ever been challenged."

This late in the development, Gordon doesn't advocate scrapping bump stops, which limit suspension travel and allow cars to run softer springs without bottoming out. But there are teams that are returning coil binding, like the Nos. 7 and 29 Richard Childress Racing cars did last week at Atlanta.

Despite the promise of cost containment, teams admit to expenses doubling over last year. And those pieces of plastic that Gordon mentioned have origins as far away as Australia and Germany.

NASCAR's long-held philosophy — shying away from Formula One-level technology — is precisely where teams have trudged to find the latest and greatest gizmos.

"That's why the seven-post (shaker) rig that a lot of the teams have, or all the teams have to at least get access to, is crucial," said Gordon, in reference to a machine designed to simulate suspension. "That thing is basically running 24 hours a day for us, and thank God we have them.

"That's an area where Childress, I felt, remember when Childress got really good, they were the first ones to have one in their shop, first ones to understand how to use it and get the information, and it really got them ahead of a lot of people. That had to do with coil-bound springs when we were doing that, then the bump stop as well. But I think now teams have learned a lot more and they caught up."

Roush Fenway Racing added a seven-post shaker rig last summer, and the results have been dramatic. While Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle have always been exceptional, the consistency that RFR has attained with the COT in 2008 is a direct result of the organization's commitment to research and development.

Kyle Busch enjoying NASCAR's madness

Sprint Cup points leader and defending Food City 500 winner Kyle Busch has to be considered the favorite entering the race, given his hot streak of late.

However, the method to Busch's madness can be summed up in two words: seat time.

Busch has talent to spare, his equipment at Joe Gibbs Racing is among the best in the sport and his no-fear mentality is easily recognizable on the racetrack. But there's not another racer on the circuit that invests the number of laps that Busch puts in week in and week out.

"The biggest thing like at Atlanta, if I hadn't run in the Nationwide or Craftsman Truck races, I would have gone out on and wrecked on the first lap with the Cup car and wrecked the thing because I had an idea how bad the tires would be," Busch said. "With the tracks, any place else we go, I use the information, quite a bit of information with the trucks, like with air pressure and learning the different grooves to use and make sure I can maneuver.

"In the trucks, it seems that I can maneuver a lot, so being able to make my Nationwide and Cup cars that way, that definitely helps me out and gives me a sense of what exactly the track has in it. For me to be able to learn that information in trucks, I can utilize that in all the other cars."

Many Sprint Cup drivers have concluded, perhaps prematurely, that there is nothing to be gained by driving the Craftsman Truck or Nationwide Series, given the dramatic difference between the vehicles. But with the splitters on the trucks, it's possible that there is more to discover than originally thought. Certainly, Carl Edwards, who won two of the first four races this season, and Busch's brother and former champion, Kurt, jumped from trucks directly into the Cup series.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart has noticed that Busch shows a lot of "confidence with the (new) car right now," and some of his comfort level stems from racing the trucks.

"You can run the trucks the same way," Stewart said. "I think his experience in the truck and the amount he's spent in the last couple of years running those also probably has helped him adapt a little quicker to this newer car than some of the rest of us that were used to the cars from last year that were stuck to the ground a lot better, and you could run 'em in yaw a lot."

To buy or not to buy ...

Has Alex Gillett purchased Robby Gordon Motorsports?

Negative, according to Gordon.

Although RGM is a technical partner of Gillett Evernham Motorsports and there have been offers, Gordon, like a lot of owners, is banking on the prospect of franchising to up the ante. Given the recent sale of GEM at a reported $120 million, it would appear that the average team value will be in the $35 to $40 million range.