NASCAR Adds Test Session at Lowe’s
April 17, 2008 by Tim Zaegel
Filed under Racing
Lowe’s Motor Speedway President, Humpy Wheeler, asked … and, now he has received. The NASCAR sanctioning body announced last Tuesday that they have added an open testing session at Lowe’s for all Sprint Cup Series drivers on May 5-6, just twelve days prior to the running of the annual All-Star Race, and twenty days before the Coca-Cola 600 – both of which are also at Lowe’s.
Why the change of heart all the sudden by NASCAR? The quick and simple answer – and, many believe this to be true – would be that NASCAR officials became overloaded with complaints from around the garage area from drivers requesting – sometimes demanding – more seat time in these new cars to figure out how to make the cars more competitive with one another. So, basically NASCAR caved … but, that’s the simple answer.
The more complex answer is that ratings have fluctuated week-to-week, sometimes high and sometimes low, but one thing has been consistent … everytime we’ve visited a mile-and-a-half track this year, the feedback has been overwhelmingly negative. That said, the schedule currently holds 17 more races on intermediate tracks, and the last thing that NASCAR wants is for these races to continue to bore their fans. Forget about whether or not Carl Edwards wins every single one of them, the bottom line is that if the cars cannot pass one another on the track, then people will quickly find themselves turning the channel on their television sets, and that is something that NASCAR just cannot afford.
Sprint Cup Series stars Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle do not believe that more testing is the solution to NASCAR’s current car situation. Kahne feels that the problem lies with the front end constantly sliding around, and Biffle says that the car’s shortcomings on the intermediate tracks lie with its size and shape, thus causing more of an issue with the aerodynamics. The majority of the garage, however – including defending series champion, Jimmie Johnson – feel as though more testing a definitely a step in the right direction for solving some of these issues.
In Other News:
- BAM Racing has recently announced that it is very likely that the team will not return to Sprint Cup Series competition until sometime in the Fall due to sponsorship issues. Team owner, Beth Morgenthau, stated that a deal that they had previously put in place to keep them in competition throughout the 2008 season was reduced to only a fraction of the season, and it now looks like that fraction will take place later this year. In the interim, Ken Schrader – driver of the no. 49 Bam (now) Toyota – will fill the empty seat in the no. 70 Chevrolet for Haas CNC Racing next week at Talladega.
- The NASCAR Nationwide Series will hit the road in Mexico City this weekend for the annual running of the Corona Mexico 200 presented by Banamex. The race will include seven full-time Sprint Cup Series drivers, to include: Kyle Busch, Sam Hornish Jr, David Reutimann, Patrick Carpentier, David Ragan, and Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards – whom are currently first and second in the Nationwide points standings.
