Its a Wrap for Preseason Thunder 2008

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Tuesday Feb 5 2008 12:13am

Take heart, NASCAR fans. With Valentine's Day just 10 days away, you know the Daytona 500 can't be far behind.

In fact, it's now less than two weeks until the 500 and even better, only five days until the Bud Shootout - the first time cars will be on track competitively in 2008, though it is a non-points event and not all Cup drivers will be participating.

While winning the Daytona 500 is certainly a dream of every driver, teams also know that a single race victory - even one as impressive as the Great American Race - does not make a winning season. Just ask Kevin Harvick, last year's Daytona 500 winner, who finished the season in 10th place, or Jeff Gordon, the winner two years earlier, who finished the year in 11th.

That's why this past week, teams made a long but necessary trek out west to test at speedways in Las Vegas and California - tracks more representative of the typical NASCAR racetrack than the 2.5 mile plate racing track at Daytona. California is the second race of the season one week after Daytona, and Las Vegas the third.

The Cup series tested Monday and Tuesday in Las Vegas, starting off the week with cold temperatures and strong winds - conditions that surprised even Vegas native Kurt Busch, who said he had never seen it that windy at the Vegas racetrack. Pacing the Monday morning session was Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, now in a Toyota, with a speed of 178.265 miles per hour, while teammate Kyle Busch led the afternoon session at 183.580. On Tuesday, it was Roush Racing's Carl Edwards in a Ford posting the fastest morning lap at 184.256 mph, and Juan Pablo Montoya in a Dodge turning the fastest lap Tuesday afternoon - and fastest of the testing period - at 186.761 mph.

The big news coming out of Las Vegas was the number of cars that crashed in testing - eight in all over the course of the two-day test, with five crashes occurring on Monday. Sam Hornish Jr., Regan Smith, Dario Franchitti, Tony Stewart, Michael Waltrip and David Ragan were among the drivers who wrecked for a variety of reasons, though several teams felt that the gusty winds, estimated to be around 50 miles per hour, may have been at least partly to blame.

"We just weren't sure what happened and neither was Dario," Franchitti's crew chief Steven Lane told reporters. "When we looked at the data, it showed us that he crashed before he even began to turn the wheel, so we feel like it had to be the wind."

Despite the number of wrecks, some drivers remained upbeat about the way the COT performed in testing at Vegas, including Richard Childress Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, though the latter was another driver who hit the wall there. "I've been real happy and this doesn't discourage that," said Burton. "What happened here was somehow or other in our control and it's not a fault of the car."

"As we went to Las Vegas, I think everybody was surprised just how well the cars unloaded," noted Harvick.

Overall, the Toyota teams continued to perform well in testing, carrying over their impressive showing at Preseason Thunder in Daytona. On Tuesday morning, for example, fully half the cars in the top 10 were Toyotas.

After a travel day Wednesday, it was on to California with teams going from the 1.5 miler in Vegas to the 2.0-mile track at Fontana, and from cold windy weather to warm pleasant weather - a fact that wasn't lost on California native Kevin Harvick. "I think everybody has figured out why everybody likes to live in California, because of the weather," he joked. He also explained the biggest difference in the tracks' racing surfaces, stating, "Las Vegas is very wide open (with) lots of grip. Here, you slide around and there's a lot of falloff on the tires."

Denny Hamlin, who led the first practice session in Las Vegas, also paced the first one in California Thursday morning with a 182.523 mile per hour lap, while Jeff Gordon led the afternoon session at 180.505. Likewise, Carl Edwards, who had the fast lap in the second morning session in Vegas, also had the fast lap in the second morning session in Fontana with a 180.495.

Many teams opted out of the final testing session Friday afternoon, opting instead to head back home and continue with preparations for Speedweeks. Of the 15 cars that did stay for the session, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers ran in the top 7, including Jimmie Johnson (1), Jeff Gordon (2), Casey Mears (4), and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (7). Johnson's lap speed was 179.497 miles per hour, though he expressed a great deal of frustration with the test session as a whole: "It's been a struggle to get the car and the tires or something to respond right here. It's been a struggle really for all four cars. We feel like we're making some ground on it, but there are still a lot of question marks right now. It's just not reacting and doing the things it did at Las Vegas. We've been in this situation before, where we have frustrating test sessions. You go home and everybody thinks about it and brainstorms and you end up coming up with something better. We'll be fine, we'll be competitive, but I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't frustrated with the California test."

Happy or sad, pleased or dissatisfied, all the teams who participated in testing gained valuable data that they will take back to the shop and apply to preparations for the season ahead. "I think we learned a lot, but the key is going back and applying what we learned so we can come back and be a touch better," observed Jeff Burton.