Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

Pre-Season testing is over at the Daytona International Speedway and Dale Junior is at the top of the cumulative single car speed chart. A new team, a new owner, a new car, and a new sponsor, are all the ingredients for a rough start for any driver. There is a lot of stress that goes along with all that. What do you do to break the ice and get rid of the butterflies if only for a little while?

Setting The Pace
How about driving to the top of the cumulative speed chart? That’s a great start for Dale Junior and the Number 88 team. The cumulative speed chart is the single car lap times from all the test sessions averaged. Dale Junior Posted a cumulative time of 48.434 seconds and a speed of 185.820 MPH. Junior was a bit slower in cumulative drafting, posting at number 24 on the cumulative drafting speed chart. I don’t worry about the drafting speeds as there are way to many factors involved there. You can never tell if they are working the draft with someone, working on balance or any of a thousand other scenarios you can come up with. We all know that at a super speedway you can be in the back of the pack one lap and be running up front a few laps later. This is great news for the “Junior Nation” as we look forward to the beginning of the season which kicks off with The Daytona 500 on February 17th. I have had my own butterflies coming into this season and this has eliminated them for me personally.
Other Notables In The Top Ten?

How about all the Toyota’s in the top ten? Six of the top ten in the cumulative testing speed chart were Toyota’s! As a matter of fact, Toyota owns positions two through six starting with Dave Blaney, Michael Waltrip, Brian Vickers, Dale Jarrett, and Tony Stewart in his new Toyota in sixth place. Who is the other Toyota driver in the top ten? How about another Gibbs driver known as one Denny Hamlin in tenth place. I would venture a guess that Toyota has their stuff together this year and we will see a completely different season from them this year. The first Chevrolet on the chart was Jimmy Johnson coming in at seventh place then Casey Mears in ninth. There was only one other manufacturer in the top ten and that was the Dodge of road racing pro Dario Frachitti coming in at the eight position. But the even as I remember telling you that I don’t hold a lot of stock in drafting speeds, Dario Frachittti came in forth in cumulative drafting speeds. Even with all the scenarios in play there, that is really good for a rookie, even though he is used to the draft in Indy cars, Its still damn good.

Outside The Top Ten

Jeff Gordon places 17th in single car speeds and 17th in drafting as well. That is not a bad showing for the four time champion. You have to look in the 12th spot to find the first Ford though with Travis Kvapil owning that spot. The next Ford The number 38 of David Gilliland in 16th place. The Petty Enterprises teams of Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty came in 27th and 43rd respectively. With all the moving going on over at Petty Enterprises, I’m not surprised to see them getting a slow start in testing. But lets remember that this is testing. The whole point of this is to find out where you are and then go back to Mooresville and work on your weak areas and tweak you strong ones. We won’t truly know where the majority of the teams stand until Speed Weeks.

The Complete Shakedown

Here is how they all stacked up.

Cumulative Single Car Speeds (All Sessions)

Cumulative Drafting Speeds (All Sessions)

I can not wait for this season to start. We are not that far away from it as The Budwieser Shootout is on February 9th, The Twin Gatorade Duels are February 14th, and The Daytona 500 is on February 17th.

Thats 25 days 19 hours and about 41 minutes from this post.

Keep those rigs rolling safe out there and check back here for more of your Nascar news.