Jan. 16, 2008
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Michael Waltrip and the NAPA Racing team completed the final day of Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona International Speedway with consistent single-car and drafting runs in both chassis 55 and 55M. NASCAR had scheduled two sessions for Wednesday, but a forecast of rain prompted the sanctioning body to cancel the lunch break and allow the teams to run non-stop until 4 p.m. The NAPA Camrys produced their fastest speeds while running in the draft. Chassis 55M completed the most laps and was ninth-fastest (47.877 seconds/187.982 mph). Chassis 55 finished 33rd-quickest (48.636 seconds/185.048 mph) on the timesheets. Michael Waltrip Racing’s Dale Jarrett also participated in the final day of testing. His fastest lap was 47.958 seconds/187.664 mph, 16th overall. The quickest lap of the day was recorded in the draft by Kasey Kahne (47.591 seconds/189.111 mph). During breaks in practice, Waltrip talked to the media about the addition of Joe Gibbs Racing to the Toyota camp and drafting in the new car. Do you think you’ll derive any benefit from Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) joining Toyota?
“We’ve already derived benefit from the addition of JGR to Toyota and that benefit is that they know how much power they had here last year when they raced Chevrolets, which was the dominant car. They know what kind of aero they had, and they expect to have the same type of package with Toyota. They’re not going to settle for any less -- they’re not going to give up any power or aero to race a Toyota. They want them to be the same or better. If you look really closely (during testing), you’ll see that Ronnie Crooks (from JGR) is bouncing back and forth between our cars and their cars. He’s been an asset that has added to our engineering group that’s really already shown dividends. Just having Tony (Stewart) and Denny (Hamlin) and now Kyle (Busch) -- you know they’re going to be on it. Not to mention that JGR has been doing this for twenty-some years, and we’re going to be two years old now. They’re going to be in better shape to win races than us right off the bat, but we think we can learn so much from them that it just accelerated the opportunity for us to be successful by 100 percent. I’ve felt that way since the first day that I heard it. A lot of people were saying that the Gibbs team was going to come over and take over Toyota. I think there’s strength in numbers. We’ve got three really strong cars that we add to the line-up, and I think you’ll see with the support of Toyota being refined and with Gibbs being here, we’ll be up to speed quicker than what you might think.”
What has changed with the draft at Daytona with the new car?
“I made one drafting run of 20 laps, and I was at all ends of the draft. I loved it. My car felt great. You could pull up, and you could goof around and make a lot of moves. I’ve never seen a boring race yet. They are all fun for me to watch no matter what, but this is going to be the craziest, greatest Daytona 500 ever. The cars are unpredictable, and no one really knows what to expect, but it’s the Daytona 500 and it’s the 50th Daytona 500, so people will find out where the edge is. It will be so cool to watch. Last season, it was a great finish and a great race – don’t expect anything different this year. Even with just two or three cars, you can already feel yourself being able to pull up and fall back. You don’t just get in line and ride. I can’t wait.” More pre-season testing is planned for the NAPA AUTO PARTS crew from Jan. 28-29, when the team heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Vegas test will be followed by two more days of testing at California Speedway from Jan. 31-Feb. 1. Preseason Thunder Test Speeds: http://www.nascar.com/news/headlines/cup/test.speeds.2/index.html |
