In an effort to help teams manage costs NASCAR suspended testing for the 2009 season for its three national and two regional racing series.
It’ll bring a significant change to the build-up to Speed Weeks in Daytona specifically because Daytona International Speedway annually hosts testing throughout the month of January before the teams return two weeks later for the 10 days of Speed Weeks.
The moratorium, announced Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, bans testing at any NASCAR-sanctioned track, including facilities where its low-level Camping World East and West series races.
“Hopefully, it’s a temporary situation,” said NASCAR president Mike Helton, who estimated the move will save “in the range of 10s of millions (of dollars) to the industry.”
“The ultimate decision was that the best-case scenario was no means no, and it being applied across the board for the entire season,” Helton said. “There are other ways we can promote the start of the season.”
Testing for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the NASCAR Nationwide Series, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, as well as the NASCAR Camping World East and West Regional Touring Series at tracks hosting any of those events are included in the 2009 policy. The move is expected to save the sport millions of dollars as teams have tested high and low - NASCAR-mandated or not - over the past couple of seasons in an effort to find a competitive edge.
The impact of NASCAR’s decision to ban testing at all tracks that host Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series and truck series events in 2009 reverberated through the garage at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Friday.
Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards, the drivers vying for the Sprint Cup championship this weekend, came out diametrically opposed to the concept.
“I think it’s a mistake,” said Johnson, who’s shooting for a third consecutive title in Sunday’s Ford 400. “I think teams need a chance to work on their cars and improve their programs to put on a better show. At the end of the day, speed equals dollars.
“If we had this rule last year with all the development work we needed to do, I don’t think we’d be where we are today. I feel a good compromise would have been to allow teams to run data acquisition on Fridays (at tracks). We still have to test. We cannot sit still and we won’t….When I heard the news this morning, I was shocked.”
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“I’m shocked that we won’t test at Daytona,” said driver Jeff Burton. “I always believed even if we had a testing ban we would test at Daytona. It’s going to be interesting. I’m sure this sport will find a way to step up and fill the void of not having the test of finding a way to create excitement for the beginning of the year.”
Carl Edwards, who drives for Roush Fenway Racing’s five-car team, applauded the decision because of the immediate cost relief it will give teams.
“I think it gives a little bit of relief to the teams as far as expenses and the team owners,” Edwards said. “As long as everyone operates on the same rules, you are going to have nearly the same competition whether you can test every day of the year or not test at all.”
“I think to a certain point it makes sense. Testing is a huge cost and times (economy) aren’t real good right now. It makes sense for NASCAR would implement this policy to help out teams. For me, it’s a little disappointing because that’s the way we get better,’’ said driver Kasey Kahne.
“And we’ve shown that we have a better chance to win at certain race tracks. I think we run better at tracks that we have tested at. We’ve shown that this year. It’s seems like we can catch-up to some better teams when we have the chance to test and actually put things on the track for a few days and learn from the data we collect. But we have to cut cost and changing the testing policy certainly will do that,” he added.
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