Pack draft speeds approach tandems in Daytona test's second day

Pack draft speeds approach tandems in Daytona test's second day

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Near the end of an interview session Friday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway, Sprint Cup Series director John Darby turned to NASCAR President Mike Helton with a satisfied smile.

At NASCAR's direction, cars took to the track at 1 p.m. in a large pack of 17 cars. Within three laps, Kevin Harvick posted a speed that rivaled the 204.722 mph Martin Truex Jr. ran in tandem drafting Thursday morning. Sixteen minutes into the session, Kyle Busch ran 205.813 mph, the fastest lap of the day to that point.

That was what Darby hoped and expected to see.

"Pretty much," Darby acknowledged after checking one of the practice monitors in the media center.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, was more emphatic in his assessment of the old-school drafting he saw on the screen.

"Looks pretty (expletive) cool to me -- and you can use the (expletive)," Pemberton said on his way out of the media center.

The bottom line is that NASCAR may well have succeeded in giving drivers a viable alternative to the two-car pushes that have dominated the action at Daytona and Talladega since last year's Daytona 500. Dale Earnhardt Jr. said as much.

Earnhardt thinks the large-pack drafting, which fans prefer overwhelmingly to the tandems, could give drivers a chance to save their equipment and their psyches for the end of the race "if the pack can keep up."

At the end of a restrictor-plate event, however, Earnhardt expects a two-car push to decide the outcome.

"That tandem stuff is going to win the race," he asserted.

Despite running the fastest lap in the large draft, Busch agreed.

"I think it's still going to come down to the end of the race -- a tandem is going to win the thing," Busch said. "The pack was still a few tenths off (on average), and if you get three tandems in front and then you have another tandem catching them, you're still going to be going way faster doing that.

"It's just a matter of how comfortable are the cars going to be to do that with going at these speeds now."

Brad Keselowski likes the speed in the cars, facilitated by an increase in the diameter of restrictor-plate openings for Friday's test sessions.

"We're racecar drivers -- I feel like we should go fast," Keselowski said.

And even though Kurt Busch ran 206.058 mph later in the session, in tandem with familiar drafting partner Regan Smith, Keselowski sensed real progress in changing the nature of racing at plate tracks.

"I feel like we're getting really close to breaking up this two-car deal," he said.

MORE RULES CHANGES AFOOT

With top practice speeds exceeding 206 mph Friday, NASCAR informed Sprint Cup teams of more changes to the Daytona competition package at a 5:30 p.m. meeting at the inspection bay in the garage.

NASCAR is shrinking the diameter of restrictor-plate openings 1/32nd of an inch to 29/32nds inches, returning to the plate configuration with which teams started Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona International Speedway on Thursday.

In addition, NASCAR cut the size of the grille opening significantly, from 63 square inches (3.5x18 inches) to 40 square inches (2x20 inches), and lowered the pressure relief valve setting from 25 pounds per square inch to 21 psi.

The smaller plate will cut the top end of the RPM range, while the other two measures are designed to make the pushing car in a sustained tandem draft overheat more quickly.

Darby said the return to the smaller plate was aimed primarily at engine builders' concerns over high RPMs.

"Just to keep the engine builders a little calmer, we are going to pull the plate back to where we started (Thursday) with it," Darby said. "Not so much in regards to the speeds -- I think one thing that was shown (Friday) is that the cars, the aero package that we have on them, as well as the drivers, that the speeds are not as big of an issue as the RPM is.

"We can fix that very effectively and very quickly just by going back to (Thursday's) plate."

SEAMLESS TRANSITION TO EFI

Almost lost in the focus on tandem drafting is the transition from carbureted engines to electronic fuel injection for the 2012 season.

With teams having tested the new fuel delivery system extensively last year, NASCAR and McLaren, the supplier of the electronic control units for the computerized systems, have been working closely with Cup teams to get EFI race-ready in time for the Daytona 500.

The transition to EFI is an important story, as cars on the track move closer in form and function to their showroom brethren, but it perhaps hasn't gotten the attention it deserves because the shift in technology has been so smooth.

"One of the reasons we're not hearing a lot about it is because of all of the legwork that's been done and the testing before we got here," Darby said. "Most of those problems have worked themselves out, and, other than the drivers starting to feel the difference and understanding the operational difference of fuel injection, it's been pretty seamless.

"The folks from McLaren have been really active with the teams in fine‑tuning some of the fuel maps and ignition maps and so on and so forth. The amount of problems we're seeing from test to test are almost diminished. The one thing that we can feel comfortable about is we can line 43 cars up on that Sunday (for the Feb. 26 Daytona 500) and know that we're going to be successful in that part, and that's a really good feeling."