Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
Well testing for the Cup guys is over for this week and what did I learn?
1. Jimmie Johnson is fast, no matter which car he drives and he should keep the “Herbie” look - with Disney’s permission of course.
2. Toyota isn’t going to be a push-over this year, and now that Joe Gibbs isn’t coaching the Redskins anymore they’ll be that much stronger - you watch.
3. Dale Jr is showing a slightly more elevated level of commitment by showing up for this round of tests even though he isn’t scheduled to test until next week.
4. Villeneuve and Bill Davis Racing might not be the best combination - a full racing season with Rookie of The Year hopes have now be replaced by a 5 race schedule … poor funding perhaps? Why is it that Bill offered Jacques a full season and had to let Jeremy Mayfield go due to lack of funds? Looks like the money Bill hoped would come with having a former F1 star in the car never came to be.
5. Kirk Shelmerdine is driving the 33 car of RCR and just might make the Daytona 500, and possibly other races spattered throughout the rest of the schedule.
6. Less adjustment capability on the CoT means more ingenious ways need to be found to make the car move through the air better. Some teams will find them too.
7. If Bob Dillner talks about the higher centre of gravity in the CoT (or the CG of the CoT as he puts it) again I’m going to put my foot through the TV. We know the car has a higher centre of gravity, we can see it. Also, the centre of gravity isn’t as high as it was in earlier versions of the Cot run last year as the race teams did some creative construction to these cars over the last few months to lower the CG. Give it a rest Bob and go find some laser cut rims will ya?
8. If you happen to be the last car in the draft chances are you are going to loose the draft as there seems to be more pull on the back-end that slows the car down enough to get out of the draft. Could we see drafting similar to that in cycling where the leader peels off and drops behind the last person in the draft every few minutes?
9. Jack Roush and Yates Racing seem to be working well together as evident by Carl Edwards running a few laps in the #28 car for comparison purposes. Question is, “will Jack be a good partner and get that 28 car a sponsorship deal too?”
10. Most importantly I learned that having those cars back on the track, even for test purposes, is better than any NASCAR hat, T-shirt, etc. that you could get for Christmas. Now if they could only capture the smell of high octane Sunoco and pump it out of the TV in HD too. Talk about front row seats.
Photo Credit: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images for NASCAR
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