NASCAR WCUP: Roush Racing Daytona Test Notes & Quotes - Day Two
10 January 2001
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
Preparations for the 2001 Daytona 500 continued at the World's Center of
Racing on Tuesday during the second day of the Ford manufacturer's test
session, and with cooler temperatures and a full seven hours of on-track
activity, most teams saw an increase in overall speeds. Twenty-nine cars
completed laps around the 2.5-mile tri-oval during the morning session,
and with each Roush Racing team running both their primary and secondary
cars, Matt Kenseth was once again atop the speed chart with a time of
49.576 seconds (181.539 mph) followed by teammate Mark Martin (49.744
seconds, 180.926 mph). While some teams used the afternoon session to
work on drafting, the primary focus of the four Roush Racing teams
remained on qualifying runs, and as a result they dropped down on the
speed chart by the day's end. Mark Martin celebrated his 42nd birthday by
posting the second fastest time of the day for Roush Racing (afternoon
session), while Matt Kenseth was the fastest of the Roush cars for the
second straight day. The test will conclude on Wednesday, as the Ford
teams were granted additional track time to make up for lost activity on
Monday when rain delayed the start of the test. Included in tomorrow's
activities will be a Ford drafting session.
Matt Kenseth, No. 17 DEWALT Tools Ford Taurus (4th quickest, 49.576 seconds, 181.539 mph):
"Today was another good day this team. The car felt the same as it did yesterday. We thought would could change some stuff out to make sure it would handle the same, and we're real happy with the car. We didn't do any drafting out there today, so we're looking forward to tomorrow's drafting session. We're pretty confident that our car will be good enough to qualify decent when we come back. They're giving us four hours tomorrow, and we're not sure how much of that time we're going to spend drafting. It just depends. If this were Talladega we probably wouldn't do any, but here you have to good-handling car underneath you, so we're going to work on making the race car turn as best we can. We need to see how the car handles when the tires get worn out with this new aerodynamic package. It seemed like the track slowed down this afternoon. The wind seemed to pick up and there was a crosswind that seemed to slow down the laps times a little bit. We ran faster this morning than this afternoon, but comparatively I think we're the same. Hopefully we'll feel the same way tomorrow when we leave."
Mark Martin, No. 6 Viagra Ford Taurus (7th quickest, 49.744 seconds, 180.926 mph)
"All in all, I think we've got some really good engines and some pretty nice cars, but we'll find out more when all of the other manufacturers run. As far as Fords go, we're within striking distance. Drafting here isn't a problem for us, so we're coming back tomorrow to see if we can find some more qualifying speed. We haven't really focused on drafting, and we're more interested in making aerodynamic gains. That won't put us on top of the speed chart, but we know we'll be fine in the draft when the Daytona 500 rolls around."
Kurt Busch, No. 97 Roush Racing Ford Taurus (12th quickest, 50.100 seconds, 179.641 mph):
"We seemed to lose what we had yesterday. It's confusing. We thought we would pick up a little bit, but we weren't as fast as we were yesterday. You could feel a crosswind today, where we had a tailwind yesterday. It looks from the speed chart that the draft equals out everybody. The top four cars that drafted are within four hundredths (of a second), so really being by yourself and making the show is going to be the biggest thing. Now we need to wait and see if that will be the same when the other manufacturers get here. I'm excited about tomorrow's drafting session, and I hope somebody will let me follow them and get mixed in with some of the Roush cars. I want to get the feel of the car in front, behind and side-by-side, so that when we come back in February we're ready to go. Qualifying will be a tough road to hoe. We need to find a little more speed, and that may come in the wind tunnel. If we go home and do our homework, we can come back here with a better car."
Jeff Burton, No. 99 CITGO SUPERGARD Ford Taurus (22nd quickest, 50.584 seconds, 177.922 mph):
"We're not running as well as we need to, obviously. I'm very excited about the way we've run our test, however. We've been very organized, we've got everything done that we wanted to do and we've picked up time each session. We haven't picked up as much time as we wanted to, but we've got one big thing ahead of us tomorrow and we'll fly that tomorrow and see what happens. After that we'll know a lot more. I'm discouraged, but we have four weeks to make our cars better. You never know, this car could be great in the draft and just suffer on its own. We haven't planned it that way, and if it works out that way, it's just by chance. It's a little confusing because we have applied a lot of technology, money and everything into this program and we have three cars that all, when you look at them in the wind tunnel and when you look at their measurements, they're the same, but they run a lot different. So we're a little confused about that. That's the most discouraging thing. Rather than we're just running poorly, we're discouraged that we have disparity in our cars that we didn't intend to be there. We'll learn from it, and when we come back here in February, hopefully it will make us stronger by the fact we found out what happened."
Text Provided By Kevin Radvany
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