Elliot Sadler is currently in 26th position in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“There’s only so much you can learn at a test anyway, if you even had it, but now that we don’t have it, this is a great test session for us,” said Sadler. “It’s like they told me yesterday, I was a lab rat this weekend – learning what we can learn for our race team for next year. We’ve already learned some cool things that we think we can do better to our cars before we go to the Daytona 500, so even before we drop the green flag it’s already been a success.”

Sadler said one of the big plusses in this deal for him is that in a sense it reunites him with old buddy Doug Yates, who both co-owns Yates Racing and oversees the Ford NASCAR engine program through Roush Yates Engines.

“It’s great because it’s like Doug and I never left each other,” Sadler said. “As soon as I called him we went right into talking about what we needed to do when we came down here and what the objective was and what the goal was. We went through what the water temperature it needs to run in the draft, oil pressure, shifting points — everything I need to know as a driver that’s important to me and him — we fell right back into that.

“He was very up front about what we need to work on, what I need to look forward to, where he thinks the Ford motor is good at, so it was neat to be able to get back and have a working relationship with them for this weekend.”

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of ?Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,? and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to