It’s just good to see cars going around a racetrack again.
You could see a little bounce in everybody’s step Thursday, because now we can say that the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season is underway. And we had a picture-perfect opening day of testing at Daytona International Speedway. Temperature-wise, it was great, and there wasn’t a lot of wind variation, which can throw guys curveballs.
The one thing we didn’t see Thursday is a whole lot of drafting. The morning session was dedicated to single-car runs, but even if they had opened it up to drafting, most would have opted to not participate, because a lot of the teams and drivers are seeing the newly repaved Daytona for the first time and a lot of them were also shaking down brand new race cars. Once the track was open to drafting in the afternoon, we only really saw four or five cars participate in drafting. The group that did get together on track included Toyota drivers Brian Vickers, Kasey Kahne, Martin Truex Jr. and David Reutimann. Tony Stewart joined in for a little bit, but other than that, everybody else stuck to single-car runs.
In previous Daytona practices and test sessions, teams would take full advantage of the opportunity to practice drafting, because shortly into a run, whether running in a pack or by yourself, it becomes about handling. Whether it was February or July, handling always won the race. But that wasn’t the case this time, and there’s several reasons for that:
• This test is structured quite differently from any other test that we’ve had at Daytona in the past.
• It’s been three years since there’s been an actual test in January — in 2008 NASCAR incorporated a no-testing policy — so this is a golden opportunity for these teams, because you don’t know what NASCAR will do in the future in terms of testing, so outside of tire tests, teams will not be able to test down here again.
• This is a great opportunity for teams to rebuild their notebooks, because you can run data acquisition since this is a test.
• NASCAR and the speedway only allow teams to unload one race car. It’s almost like a race weekend where you unload one car and work with it, and the only way you can bring out your backup car is if you wreck and tear up your vehicle (which we certainly hope that doesn’t happen).
• And the newly repaved surface has so much grip that everybody’s car is going to drive well.
Aside from not taking a chance of tearing up your likely Daytona 500 car at a test, teams are taking the attitude that “if we make a change on our car that makes it run faster by itself, it’s going to be faster in the draft.”
But business is about to start picking up.
Weather permitting, we should see a few more teams test the draft on Friday. Then on Saturday we’ll see even more people participating in the draft. I don’t think we’ll see an overabundance of teams in a pack, because it is easier to understand how changes might affect you when there are no other cars nearby, but get ready for more drafting practice in the next two days.
Obviously, you don’t want to tear anything up. Because you are only allowed to unload one car, you get the feeling that the majority of teams at this week’s test are driving around their Daytona 500 car. A lot of them are brand new race cars, and it’s not that long until we are back down here for Speedweeks. So you don’t want to tear something up. But it’s also about getting good speed out of the race car and gathering as much data as you can to see if it supports things you’ve learned before getting here — whether it be from the wind tunnel, on the seven-post shaker rig or elsewhere. And I’m sure teams can’t wait to get all of this data back to the shop and fine tune their cars even more before coming back for Speedweeks in less than three weeks.
A lot of teams, including 75 percent of Hendrick Motorsports, are getting a chance to check out new driver/crew chief combinations. You can announce a driver or crew chief change in November, and the new pairing can go to lunch and spend time together every day, but until you get to the racetrack to start working and communicating together, you won’t be able to see how the chemistry really is between the two.
Overall, it was a very successful first day of testing Thursday. I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about this surface.
QUICK THOUGHTS
It’s obvious the preliminary work Goodyear officials did with tires at Talladega in August and here in December is paying off. Yes, they are still on pins and needles until the checkered flag waves for the Daytona 500, but they have done a nice job so far.
This is the first full-blown test with teams using the E15 fuel they will be using starting this coming season — and so far there haven’t been any problems whatsoever.
That’s not the only change, though — the race cars have a new nose now. NASCAR got rid of the cavity that existed on the front bumper, got rid of the splitter braces and made it so that a lot less of the front splitter is exposed. Now, I don’t think we’ll really experience any impact of the changes to the front nose at Daytona, because the track has so much grip. The second race of the season at Phoenix won’t be a true benchmark either for the new nose, because it is a much flatter track where mechanical grip is so important. Probably the first real measuring stick will be at Las Vegas — a very fast mile-and-a-half racetrack where you enter the corner at a very fast race of speed (close to 200 mph) and aero becomes certainly more of an issue. If there are any issues with this new nose, and we don’t anticipate there will be any, it’ll change to some degree the balance of the car.
