NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Spoiler Alert - Deep In The Heart Of Texas
In 2006, Brian Vickers set the Texas Motor Speedway pole record at 196.235 miles per hour...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted April 12, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Brian Vickers won't be racing this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
With two races down in NASCAR’s return to a rear spoiler and elimination of the rear wing for Sprint Cup cars, so far, so good. That could be about to change.

Aerodynamics weren’t much of a factor in the first race of the new spoiler era at the half-mile Martinsville Speedway, where the track qualifying record is less than 100 miles per hour. And they weren’t a very big deal, either, at the one-mile Phoenix International Raceway, where last Friday AJ Allmendinger won the pole with a lap of 134.675 mph.

This week, though, may be considerably different.

Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway will be the first at a 1.5-mile track with the blade spoiler. And TMS is one of the fastest tracks in the entire Sprint Cup Series, a place where Brian Vickers set the track record by qualifying at 196.235 mph back in 2006.

And aerodynamics at 196 mph are a whole lot different than aerodynamics at 100 mph or 135 mph. The Sprint Cup teams tested at Charlotte Motor Speedway a month ago and while from all indications, there wasn’t much change between wing and spoiler, drivers will tell you that cars handle very differently in testing with 10 or 12 or 20 cars on track, and race conditions, with 43 cars at full speed.

So this week, the drivers will find out just how much or little effect the spoiler makes.

“The real true test is going to be at these 1.5-mile tracks, Texas being the first one,” said Jeff Gordon, four-time Sprint Cup champion and driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. “Again, I don't think it's going to change who's going to be fast and who's going to run good and how you're day is going to go. I think if we're well-prepared and we've got the car dialed in then it'll be a typical challenging Texas for us that hopefully we can pull off a win at. I feel as confident about it whether we have the spoiler or the wing.”

"The final test will be in Texas. And even to Talladega. There's some things with this spoiler that should help the car stay on the ground and change the draft a bit at Talladega. So we have a nice progression in tracks to really evaluate what's going on. But so far I think it's going well and it's driving a lot like it did before."

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEEDtv.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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