"Test sessions" are to NASCAR Nextel Cup Series teams what "practice sessions" are to teams that compete in the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and any other form of organized sport. Test sessions are a time to condition the race car and the team members. For NASCAR Nextel Cup Series teams, test sessions provide a regulated opportunity to take cars to the track and work on them in an actual race environment. Without any kind of oversight from NASCAR, teams could, theoretically, test at will - take cars to each and every track in preparation for each and every race.
Without NASCAR rules, teams with unlimited sources of funding would be able to take advantage of such opportunities while teams with less funding would fall to a disadvantage. In an effort to level out the playing field, NASCAR officials created testing policies that limit the number of tracks at which teams can test, as well as the number of days that can be used for testing.
This regulation of testing opportunities led many teams to participate in test sessions at tracks where the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series does not compete. In the hopes of gaining a competitive advantage, some teams spend a few days at facilities such as Kentucky Speedway, Nashville Speedway and Greenville-Pickens in South Carolina. That advantage, though, can sometimes be unclear.
"The biggest thing that those tests do is they give us a baseline for our race cars," said Slugger Labbe, crew chief of the #88 UPS Racing Team. "We can take them to a track and just make sure the car is durable and isn't completely off base."
While there are benefits to testing at such tracks, Labbe cautions that a team should not rely on the information gathered at those types of tests too much because results can sometimes be misleading.
"Tests at tracks where we don't race can be good if you have a new car and you want to shake it down before getting to the race track," Labbe explained. "It can be hard taking a new car to the track especially since there isn't as much practice time during the race weekend. Take Richmond for example. We only had two hours of practice on Friday and that was it. So it definitely helps in that respect."
This is the kind of strategizing that led to the team's decision to take part in a partial day test at Nashville Speedway on May 23rd. Robert Yates Racing has built new cars for both Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler for the upcoming race at Dover International Speedway on June 5th. Both the #88 UPS and #38 M&M'S® racing teams will take the new cars to the 1.25-mile speedway in Nashville, Tenn. which features a concrete surface similar to the high-banked, concrete one-mile track in Dover, Del. Labbe said that while the team hopes to gather a nice base for the upcoming MBNA 400 in Dover, it will not be using a whole lot of what is gathered in Nashville.
"You have to be careful when it comes to trusting the information you learn," he explained. "What makes our car run well at Nashville probably isn't going to translate to Dover. They are alike in that they are concrete tracks and have banking, but it pretty much stops there. We just have to be careful when it comes to trusting all the information. Our goal is to test the balance of the car and we may try some different gear combinations, but that is pretty much where the testing stops."
While the test may seem somewhat pointless to some, the results can be invaluable if the team stumbles on another piece or part that enables it to run a more durable race.
"It can be very helpful in other ways," Labbe said. "We try a variety of parts and pieces that we may be thinking about changing from one manufacturer to another. That can be helpful especially if it means finding that part that helps prevent a part failure. You can't win a race if you don't finish and that's the first step."
