After years of dealing with the disastrous fallout from the ill-fated "Car of Tomorrow" - a car loaded up with a smorgasbord of safety items and technology but completely devoid of any personality whatsoever, not to mention a total lack of manufacturer brand awareness except for the car names plastered on the front ends - NASCAR has seen the light, and beginning with the 2013 season there will not only be instant brand recognition among the various manufacturers, the cars will actually look racy and dare I say, in Ford's case, sexy.

Expect to see and read all about the 2013 Ford Fusion in full NASCAR regalia when it is formally unveiled toward the end of this month during the NASCAR media days. The new Fusion is stunning in street trim, and even more so in its racing livery. I don't think there will be a racing enthusiast out there - NASCAR or otherwise - who won't be absolutely geeked when they get a glimpse of this new racing machine.

All of the competing manufacturers - Chrysler, Ford, GM, Toyota and most likely another import manufacturer to be named later - will have cars designed to take advantage of NASCAR's new "Big Picture" thinking. (I'd say forward thinking but the impetus for this change didn't come from within NASCAR, it came from the competing manufacturers strongly urging - okay, hammering - NASCAR to welcome their new designs and embrace visual distinctiveness among the manufacturers, or else. As in, they might not bother to compete at all. Funny how thinly-veiled threats eventually work, even with NASCAR.)