The revival of Preseason Thunder at Daytona International Speedway resurrected a buzz leading into Speedweeks that had been missing in recent years.
NASCAR Sprint Cup teams soldiered through three full days of testing in preparation for the Daytona 500. And while most drivers survived the tedium of dialing in cars the first day, Daytona’s new surface proved to be a game changer.
Although some teams continued working on qualifying runs, by the final test session, tandem drafting — featuring two-car breakaways identical to what has evolved at Talladega — became the focus of many teams hoping to perfect the method before returning next month. The overwhelming sentiment was that Sprint Cup races at Daytona will be fast, furious and decided by the best pair at the finish line.
Here’s what else was gleaned from testing:
1. NO CHANGES TO THE PLATE SIZES: NASCAR seemed thrilled with what it witnessed over the past three days and was comfortable with the speeds.
Despite Brad Keselowski’s top lap of 198.605 mph and cars exceeding 203 mph on the backstretch, decreasing the plate sizes from 30/32-inch at the Goodyear tire test to 29/32-inch for preseason testing slowed the cars just enough to add stability and enable them to tandem draft.
“It’s really odd when the two cars get teamed up, and with just a little bit slower speed, yes, the cars can team up now and go a little bit faster, whereas with the bigger plate, the speed was just too great, and there was too much movement, and the cars were more violent,” Kurt Busch said. “It’s an odd feeling. It’s going to be a two-car breakaway. There are going to be multiple two-car breakaways.”
While there was talk among competitors of a possible plate change, Sprint Cup Series director John Darby saw no reason to switch. Darby remarked that the drivers were “surely not uncomfortable” with the high rates of speed. He concluded, “it’s going to be a fun 500,” but warned drivers better pick out their partners “and keep ’em in sight or otherwise forget about it.”
2. WANT TO DANCE?: Competition can lead to strange partnerships, but personalities go out the window when a driver is searching for speed.
Although the Joe Gibbs Racing and Stewart Haas Racing teams remain fairly exclusive while tandem drafting, Jeff Gordon, Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger simply were searching for dancing partners to practice “the exchange.”
“The quickest way (to the front of the pack), it's all about the exchange, really,” Allmendinger said. “If you can hook up, push a guy for three-and-a-half, four laps and immediately get right back to his bumper. . . .
“It’s all about the guy in front using the brakes right so he can get to the bumper. If you can get that exchange right, that’s huge.”
Denny Hamlin, one of the first drivers to zero in on two-car drafting, acknowledged that other racers have picked up their games.
“A lot of guys have gotten better at it,” Hamlin said. “You know when I was doing it at the very beginning we were one of the few cars that could do it. Now, it seems like everyone can, and have figured out how to make it work, so I don’t think we have as big an advantage as we had before.
“It will be how long you can push. We‘re trying to just work on exchange rates right now, how fast you can switch from the front to the back with the car we are drafting with.”
Unlike Goodyear testing, in which officials orchestrate big-pack drafting, packs never materialized, much to the chagrin of more aggressive crew chiefs. However, for many teams the focus remained on finding speed and keeping cars in one piece.
Busch, who elected to spend the third day tandem drafting with teammate Keselowski, acknowledged “there’s a lot of responsibility in both parties” when practicing two-car drafting.
“It’s almost like learning to dance, and this is a new dance for everybody, and whoever masters it and has the right opportunity will win the Daytona 500,” Busch said. “I think I’ve done well with learning to understand this two-car breakaway. There’s still more to learn, though. There’s only two groups out on the track right now. When you’ve got four or five groups out there trying to do the same thing, it’s going to get pretty wild.
“(Goodyear testing) was much more civilized. They just told us, ‘Go run 25 laps — we need tire wear.’ Now, people are just worried about raw speed.”
3. KEEP YOUR COOL: Not only were drivers practicing tandem drafting, but they also were monitoring how many laps the cars could make before overheating. When the vehicles are locked together in a two-car breakaway, the flow of air into the second car is severely diminished.
“It’s three-and-a-half seconds you pick up a lap, so you don’t do it right or you get somebody that can do it,” Allmedinger said. “Honestly, the big thing is probably going to be finding the right tape situation and the right front end; basically whatever you do there you can push longer than anybody else. You got guys that can push maybe an extra lap because their car stays cooler or they can run hotter; it's going to be a huge deal. Man, that’s three-and-a-half seconds.”
Danny Lawrence, trackside manager for Earnhardt Childress Engines, said perfecting cooling systems has “always been a game” since teams have been coming to Daytona and Talladega. However, the new trend in drafting will introduce new challenges.
“The aerodynamics are always the most sensitive at the speedways,” Lawrence said. “The thing that worries me, Jeff Burton, who did the most of our drafting, said when you’re leading you have to lift. You have to partially throttle it. If you’re running second, you can run it wide open. That’s hard on the stuff because of the distribution. The guy in front has to lift to keep the car behind it attached to them. It will be really interesting because everyone needs a teammate to push away from everybody. It never lines up in the perfect order. You’re never with who you want to be with and everybody wants to win.
“We’re working on our cooling system right now. The drivers know when you get up to 300 degrees water temperature, it’s not going to last very long. It’s whoever figures out how to keep it cooler with no air. That’s a big part of it. It’s one of those situations where we’ll just have to deal with it because that‘s what you‘re going to have to do to get away from everybody. The cars are so close, everybody is running the same speed. You’re going to have to have some help. Everyone has state-of-the-art radiators, but you have one just a little bit better than the next guy. We’re working on having everything optimized.”
Allmendinger could run for about three-and-a-half laps before the water and oil temperatures escalated to the point where he needed to back off.
“But that’s just being conservative on how hot to run the motor,” Allmendinger said. “Believe me, if it comes down to four or five to go, I’ll run it until it blows up. Hopefully it doesn’t.”
4. THE SHOW BEFORE THE SHOW: While there is not a lot of money to be made from the Budweiser Shootout — unless you're the wining team — the experience of running 75 laps with caution laps included will offer teams the opportunity to put all these practices to use under real-time competition without point consequences.
The Shootout will provide the ideal dress rehearsal for teams to work on strategy in big packs on the track as well as in the pits. The smoothness of the new track’s surface combined with the durability of the Goodyear tires will allow teams to make fuel-only pit stops without adding four-tire changes at every pit sequence. Teams also will have a better indication of how the E15 fuel will perform and the changes around the new process.
