KIDWCKED
01-20-2011, 11:14 PM
c/p from nascar.com By Dave Rodman, January 19, 2011 2:30 PM, EST
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR expects about 40 teams to appear Thursday at Preseason Thunder Sprint Cup testing in advance of Speedweeks and the 53rd annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
NASCAR abolished preseason testing after the 2008 season, so for the past two years Daytona has been relatively quiet after two decades of continually-increasing pressure to test.
“
Essentially it's an all-new track for us.The first step for us will be to look, set-up-wise and see what we may need to have different with the new surface.
”
-- NICK SANDLERBut a sizeable pothole developed in Daytona's surface during the 2010 Daytona 500 and the track was repaved -- a five-month process -- in time for Goodyear to stage a tire test in December that 18 teams attended.
Even at that test, Jan. 20-22 was the target for the rest of the garage, however. And everyone from the Hendrick Motorsports team of five-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson to Rusty Wallace Racing's debuting Cup operation for full-time Nationwide Series driver Steve Wallace, who's guaranteed a start in the Daytona 500, will be present.
To a man, the drivers who tested in December raved about the smoothness of Daytona's new pavement and its obvious increased grip, as well as the performance of the Goodyear tires.
Defending Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray even cited an unexpected benefit of the track's remodeling.
"They did a really good job, not only on the race track, but widening pit road," McMurray said. "It's really nice to get that little bit of extra room on pit road. Pit road speeds are really fast when you come to [restrictor] plate tracks. Typically we have the smallest brakes on the car that we run all year long, so pit road is also trouble. So the fact they widened it that 10 or 12 feet is really nice."
But what the paving job most did is present a different scenario for teams who, over the years, have been forced to deal with a high-speed, high-banked race track that races a lot narrower than it looks and at worst, was washboard-rough.
Laptop computers will be everywhere in Daytona's garage for the next three days, and a couple of Roush Fenway Racing engineers that'll be engrossed in making 2009 Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth's Ford go faster assessed some of the goals of this test.
"Essentially it's an all-new track for us," Nick Sandler said. "The first step for us will be to look, set-up-wise and see what we may need to have different with the new surface. The old Daytona surface was really challenging, handling-wise for drivers. Before, our focus was helping with mechanical grip as well and making sure that our cars had low drag [wind resistance].
"Now, with the track being as smooth as it is with the new pavement, we're hearing that it's a lot more like Talladega Superspeedway, which really makes our focus more about getting minimal drag and less about problems with mechanical grip."
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR expects about 40 teams to appear Thursday at Preseason Thunder Sprint Cup testing in advance of Speedweeks and the 53rd annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
NASCAR abolished preseason testing after the 2008 season, so for the past two years Daytona has been relatively quiet after two decades of continually-increasing pressure to test.
“
Essentially it's an all-new track for us.The first step for us will be to look, set-up-wise and see what we may need to have different with the new surface.
”
-- NICK SANDLERBut a sizeable pothole developed in Daytona's surface during the 2010 Daytona 500 and the track was repaved -- a five-month process -- in time for Goodyear to stage a tire test in December that 18 teams attended.
Even at that test, Jan. 20-22 was the target for the rest of the garage, however. And everyone from the Hendrick Motorsports team of five-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson to Rusty Wallace Racing's debuting Cup operation for full-time Nationwide Series driver Steve Wallace, who's guaranteed a start in the Daytona 500, will be present.
To a man, the drivers who tested in December raved about the smoothness of Daytona's new pavement and its obvious increased grip, as well as the performance of the Goodyear tires.
Defending Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray even cited an unexpected benefit of the track's remodeling.
"They did a really good job, not only on the race track, but widening pit road," McMurray said. "It's really nice to get that little bit of extra room on pit road. Pit road speeds are really fast when you come to [restrictor] plate tracks. Typically we have the smallest brakes on the car that we run all year long, so pit road is also trouble. So the fact they widened it that 10 or 12 feet is really nice."
But what the paving job most did is present a different scenario for teams who, over the years, have been forced to deal with a high-speed, high-banked race track that races a lot narrower than it looks and at worst, was washboard-rough.
Laptop computers will be everywhere in Daytona's garage for the next three days, and a couple of Roush Fenway Racing engineers that'll be engrossed in making 2009 Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth's Ford go faster assessed some of the goals of this test.
"Essentially it's an all-new track for us," Nick Sandler said. "The first step for us will be to look, set-up-wise and see what we may need to have different with the new surface. The old Daytona surface was really challenging, handling-wise for drivers. Before, our focus was helping with mechanical grip as well and making sure that our cars had low drag [wind resistance].
"Now, with the track being as smooth as it is with the new pavement, we're hearing that it's a lot more like Talladega Superspeedway, which really makes our focus more about getting minimal drag and less about problems with mechanical grip."