COT debuts at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
The new-generation Sprint Cup race car that NASCAR began phasing in last year will race for the first time at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, and that has drivers curious about what to expect.
TMS is one of the fastest ovals on the NASCAR circuit, with Brian Vickers holding the track record at 196.235 miles per hour, set in qualifying in 2006. NASCAR’s new car was raced at shorter tracks and road courses last year, with its introduction at the fast intermediate ovals coming earlier this year, to mixed reviews.
The key this weekend, according to several top drivers, will be to make the most of practice time at the 1.5-mile track to see how the new car performs and responds to adjustments. The teams will have 90 minutes of practice time on Friday, prior to qualifying for the Samsung 500. After that, there will be a 45-minute practice Saturday morning and a one-hour “Happy Hour” session Saturday afternoon.
“The success we had there last year is thrown out the window,” said defending race-winner Jeff Burton, who drives for Richard Childress Racing. “None of that information will be worth a hoot so we’re starting over again.” Burton, of course, won last year’s race in the old-style car, which is no longer raced.
And that, Burton said, makes practice “exceptionally important. The key to our sport is taking the time that you have to do anything that you are doing and doing it efficiently. If you have an hour of practice, you have to use that hour of practice better than your competition. Being efficient with your time is really important. That’s going to be like that all year with this car, but even more important because we’re trying to learn so much in a short time.”
Burton is not alone in his assessment.
“Practice will be really important. The way Atlanta went, practice is going to be very important,” said Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 9 Gillett Evernham Motorsports Dodge. “There's a lot of teams, on Friday they just do qualifying or 30 minutes of race runs, then put it in qualifying trim for an hour. We've done both over the years. We usually start in race trim for a little bit and go to qualifying. I think with this car you'll just spend a little bit more time actually working on a race setup and a little less time on a qualifying setup. You know, just gives you a little bit more time to try to figure out what exactly we'll need for Sunday to be competitive all race long.”
“Whoever gets the handle on their car the quickest and whoever makes the right changes in practice will be good through the race,” said Roush Fenway Racing driver David Ragan. “I felt like we were just behind the eight ball at Atlanta and just behind on our changes. If we could have unloaded the way we ended the race, we might have been fine, so it’s going to be crucial to get some good laps in practice.”
“It seems like every time we go to Texas someone else is fast because that’s a track where the engineers, the engine department, the tire guys – it takes every piece of the puzzle to go fast there, so hopefully we’re the team that’s got it figured out when we go back there,” added Ragan’s teammate, Carl Edwards. “But this year we’ve got the new car. We’ve run really well at the mile-and-a-halves with the new car, so I can’t wait to go. I think it’s going to be great.”
Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor 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 numerous television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association.
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