NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series drivers Dale Jarrett, Jimmie Johnson, Bobby Labonte and Ricky Rudd participated in a Goodyear tire test April 24 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in preparation for the 14th Allstate 400 at the Brickyard on Sunday, July 29. Quotes from 1996 and 1999 race winner Jarrett, 2000 race winner Labonte and 2006 race winner Johnson:
BOBBY LABONTE (No. 43 Cheerios Dodge):
“Trying to help Goodyear get their mind straight on what tire to bring back here in a few months. It’s a really hard track on tires because the wear happens real fast, but over the weekend it gets better. ” (Does this track differ from year to year? It was resurfaced in 2004, but does it change that much? ): “Not really. Did they do anything to it this year? It looks like they did, so I was just curious. It looks blacker, like it didn’t weather at all. Maybe they put blankets on it. It’s usually about the same and doesn’t change a lot from year to year. The tires and our cars, what we do to them changes more than anything else. This track stays the same more than other places we go to. They always take care of it, and that’s probably the reason why. ” (What do you get out of this tire test? ): “We brought one car that we just put a body on, and we thought we’d try it. We’re going to try it again in a couple weeks at Charlotte, and we’ll try it again at Charlotte before we bring it back here, and hopefully we’ll be able to compare notes. Just like every weekend, when you get back here and there’s 50 cars trying to make the race; everybody figures it out pretty quick. ” (Without a regular open test here this year like in past years, do you feel like the guys here today will have an advantage? ): “I sure hope so. I think we’ll all sit on the first and second row (laughs). I don’t think that will happen; I’d like to think that will happen. Definitely without an open test, it’s really weird because you’d almost count this as a mini-vacation. Come up here, test, sit in the pool for a while; it’s always hot. It’s going to be different because a lot of guys come up here pretty green, a lot of guys that haven’t been here before, it’s going to be challenging for them. We really only had a day (today), and whether we come back with the same tire we ran today, we really don’t know, so I think it (our advantage) is going to be miniscule by the time its done. ”
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