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“Until we get out there on the track – and the wind tunnel is not always the most accurate way to test these things. But we need more front downforce. Every weekend, every team out there is complaining the car won’t turn in the middle, won’t turn in the middle, won’t turn in the middle. I’m up for anything that would get the car to turn in the middle.

“I don’t think we should be adding downforce to the car to be honest with you. I think that if we really want to make the racing better, we need to take some downforce away. But this car’s high CG (center of gravity) and all the right side weight and all that stuff, maybe it does need more downforce.”

Mark Martin said he didn’t anticipate that teams would launch into extensive at-track testing programs.

“I just don’t see it being something where the race teams are going to go out and test everywhere that we can test because I think you’re going to bolt it on and you’re going to go race and you’re going to go to wind tunnel and you’re going to work and develop it along,” Martin said.

Matt Kenseth said it’s a good time for his team, which struggled for most of last season after winning the first two races, to tackle a rules change.

“Whenever they change something and you’re not running great, it’s kind of a good thing because you hope to get back on top of it and you hope you work out different set ups and can try some different things,” he said.

But Kenseth did say he thought the spoiler would be less forgiving than the wing has been.

“There’s never really been a penalty for making a mistake, and there’s never really been a reward for keeping it off the wall all day, because you can slam them into the wall so hard and they still run the same speed,” he said. “You can get them sideways 45 degrees and almost anybody can catch them. They’re so forgiving with that wing and everything.

“I think this is going to get it back to being a little more like what we had before, maybe a little less forgiving and make qualifying a little bit more exciting, where some people might get over the edge and not be able to catch it type of thing. I don’t know what it’ll do, but I think it’ll make it a little bit more difficult.”

– Rick Minter can be reached at rminter@racintoday