Daytona Testing Week Two: Day Two
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Last Week:
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Day two blog Click Here
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By Greg Engle
Editor, Cup Scene Daily
January 16
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3:00PM-NOTE: Due to the passing of Benny Parsons, the regular coverage of testing will be light today.
There will be no pictures, however we will provide full coverage tomorrow.
Our complete news on the passing of Benny Parsons is on the front page of the main site: HERE
11:10AM-Steve Richards of MRN got reaction from Michael Waltrip this morning at Daytona International Speedway.
“I was at the last race he won. I thought it was cool when he got in Rick’s car and started running up front. He was in victory lane the day I asked my wife to marry me. He sort of facilitated that, and helped me through it. “
“I have a lot of wonderful memories of Benny. Because I appreciated who he was and how he handled himself. He will be missed.”
“It’s sad to be in Daytona. He won here and I’ll think about him a lot this year.”
“He was so sweet. He didn’t want to argue with anybody. He just wanted to have a good time. He wanted to be there to help you if he could and wanted you to let him know what you needed out of him, that’s what I remember most about him. Just a real caring, giving person and we had some great times over the years.
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“Some of the funniest things, were like when he’d golf you’d be like ‘ok BP nice and easy and he would swing so fast I never even saw him do it. And I asked him if he realized he was doing that. We just laughed a lot…we had some good times.”
Audio: Reaction to the passing of Benny Parsons from Michael Waltrip
10:00AM-
Benny Parsons Passes Away
Famed broadcaster, NASCAR champion and a beloved member of the NASCAR community Benny Parsons died this morning just after 9AM Eastern at Carolina Medical Center in Charlotte North Carolina.
Parsons was 65. He had been battling lung cancer since the middle of 2006. After treatment, Parsons declared that he was cancer free in October 2006. Complications from his treatment resulted in him losing one lung. The remaining lung became infected and in late December Parsons was hospitalized. His condition was listed as critical and sources said his already grave condition worsened late Monday and he passed away early Tuesday.
Further details and reaction will be posted as they become available.
7:00AM- In route to the speedway, I expect to arrive and get set up around 10AM. Look for reports and photos soon after.... stay tuned!
Vickers takes over for Allmendinger at Daytona
AJ Allmendinger will finish his week of testing at Daytona International Speedway early.
Allmendinger, the open wheel star and newest addition to the Red Bull driver lineup, will step aside Tuesday to allow teammate Brian Vickers to return.
Vickers, who has more stock car experience than Allmendinger, will help the team try to find the speed that has eluded them so far in the Daytona test sessions. Vickers scheduled test session was last week, but team officials confirmed Monday that they would bring him back to Daytona. During last week’s session, Vickers and Team Red Bull posted the slowest laps among the Toyota’s that tested.
Allmendinger managed a 34th place lap on the speed charts on Monday.
Round Two of Daytona Nextel Cup Testing gets underway at Daytona
(DAYTONA BEACH Fla.)-An early morning rain shower forced a wait of just over 90 minutes Monday morning at Daytona International Speedway delaying the start of the second round of Nextel Cup testing.
When the cars finally took to the track it was a day devoted to solo runs. NASCAR officials allowed teams to work through the scheduled lunch break and gave them an extra 30 minutes at the end of the day.
Robert Yates Racing driver David Gilliland led the speed charts with a lap of 185.090. The top speed for Gilliland’s Ford was the first time that a make other than a Chevy topped the charts at day’s end since the testing began last week. Jeremy Mayfield in a Toyota and Jeff Gordon in a Chevy followed Gilliland.
David Stremme and Regan Smith rounded out the top five.
“Everybody is really working harder,” Stremme said. “I’m really not worried about the other manufacturers or anything else that’s going on. We’re worried about our stuff. It’s starting to show. I feel totally different as a driver than I did at this time last year. We came along as a team at the end of last season and we look to continue that. I’m a lot more confident in myself and the team.”
A great deal of attention was given to Stremme’s teammate at Chip Ganassi Racing, Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya is making his second testing appearance at Daytona during the month of January. Earlier this month, Montoya tested a Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley that he will race in the upcoming Rolex 24 At Daytona on Jan. 27-28.
The Colombian-born Formula-1 star was sixth fastest on the day. Montoya will embark on his first full year in the Nextel Cup series on February 18th with the running of the Daytona 500. He will the first foreign-born driver to compete in the Daytona 500 since Christian Fittipaldi, who raced the No. 33 Chevy for Andy Petree Racing in 2003 Daytona 500.
"I think the car has been behaving really good," Montoya said. "From what I hear we've stepped it up from where we were last year. It's still very early. It's my first test this year, so we'll take it step by step."
Ward Burton also turned laps Monday.
After being out of the sport since 2004, Burton returned in 2006 and ran a handful of races for Morgan-McClure Motorsports.
This year the popular driver and Daytona 500 winner, will campaign a full season for Morgan-McClure a single car team in a sport dominated by multi-car organizations. Burton is testing this week at Daytona and knows he and the team have their work cut out form them.
“We've got an uphill battle ahead of us,” Burton said Monday at Daytona. “It certainly is somewhat of a mountain to climb. But as I walked into the speedway this morning, it has so much history to it. I can remember the first time being here as a child and now back here again. It's a little bit familiar territory and somewhat unfamiliar. It's exciting. It's such a challenge. It's neat to be back in the game."
While Burton was out of a racecar for nearly two and a half years he say his skills haven’t deteriorated all that much.
"Shoot, I guess we all can get rusty in some way or another,” Burton said. ”When I got back in the car the first time it was a lot of fun at first. My first instinct was, 'Where in the hell have I been?' because it just felt that natural. I think the sport changed, but it's still driving.”
By Amy Hair
Cup Scene Daily,January 16
(DAYTONA BEACH Fla.)-Brett Bodine held a brief news conference at Daytona USA on Monday, anxious to share information with the fans about the Car of Tomorrow.
NASCAR's Brett Bodine talks about the Car Of Tomorrow with fans Monday at Daytona USA(DIS)
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With a model of the new car body and chassis sitting under lights behind him, Bodine methodically and enthusiastically pointed out the changes. He stated the three main issues that the new car was designed to address are safety, competition and cost.
Bodine estimates that when the Car of Tomorrow is fully embodied in NASCAR, we will see teams with possibly half the stable (amount of cars) that they have now, simply because based on the new design and its capabilities, there will be no need to have many different cars reserved for different tracks. In the long run this may prove to be a cost saver for the teams.
Bodine elaborated on the new nine point computerized inspection system, noting that it will be next to impossible for teams to experiment or alter those areas that used to be accessible.
When asked if there was any chance teams could manipulate the areas that are embedded with sensors, Bodine’s response was “it won’t happen”. The new computerized sensors are located in strategic areas through out the car. They are in the front frame rails, the main frame rails, in key floorboard areas, the rear fire manifold, the rear clip, the left frame rail and the side frame rails. The way of inspection as we now know it in NASCAR will be a thing of the past. The templates right now are put on one at a time during inspection, where as the new inspections will see many templates applied at once. We’ll see computer sensors rounding out the quicker and more accurate inspection. He said that over one hundred cars have now gone through and passed the precertification inspections.
The down force of the new car was another hot topic. The new splitter will have an allowable adjustment (about 4”) that the teams can maneuver, but down force as the teams now know it will be different. Speed however, has not been affected in the testing that has been done. Wind tunnel testing was addressed, and Bodine explained that with the taller standing windshields and the additional car height, the drag will be slightly increased.
The question was asked about possibly having the new car run a limited amount of races and then doing a reevaluation. Bodine responded that there has been a tremendous amount of testing and running of the new car under many different conditions. Car manufacturers as well as teams have been involved in this process. They don’t plan any pauses when the car is introduced. They are quite confident it will do very well.
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