Round two of the 2008 edition of NASCAR Pre-Season Thunder took place in the western part of the United States last week with two-day test sessions each taking place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and California Speedway. The teams competing under the Toyota banner continued to show some strength throughout the test sessions, creating a lot of buzz around Team Toyota.
Setting the pace for Team Toyota has been the trio of Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) Teams but Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) has not been far behind. Toyota teams littered the top 10 practice speeds in each of the four sessions that made up the two days at Las Vegas. MWR's David Reutimann had the second fastest car on the track during the morning session on Jan. 29 while JGR drivers were the fastest drivers during the morning and afternoon sessions on Jan. 28.
Former rookie of the year candidate AJ Allmendinger turned in the fastest lap of the Las Vegas test session for a Toyota team with his time of 29.071 seconds and 185.752 mph. Only Dodge driver Juan Pablo Montoya turned in a faster lap at Las Vegas with his time of 28.914 seconds and 186.761 mph.
"It went well," is how Dale Jarrett responded to questions regarding his test at Las Vegas. "Our organization did a lot of work during the winter. In particular, Michael Waltrip, Michael McDowell, David Reutimann and Mark Green - they did a lot of testing. Our test team kept telling me how much better we were going to be because we really struggled with this new car style last year."
"Dr. Eric Warren (vice president and technical director for MWR) has done a terrific job at organizing all of those efforts," Jarrett continued. "I was pleasantly surprised when I got in the car in Las Vegas and made the first few laps because the car does things that we couldn't get it to do last year. We have speed and the car drives well for a number of laps."
With limited opportunities to test, David Reutimann, who replaces Jarrett in the UPS Toyota beginning at Martinsville in late March, said track time of any form is a valuable resource as the start of the 2008 NASCAR season quickly approaches.
"Due to the fact that we just don't have any tests - period - then any test is real important," Reutimann said. "I think it's even more so for us because the whole organization has new crew chiefs and new personnel. It's been a chance to get everyone to work together around each other. I'm pretty pleased with the stuff we learned and the gains we've made and our whole program. I'm encouraged by what I've seen here."
The good times continued to roll for the Toyota teams as the west coast test session continued at California Speedway on Thursday and Friday. The Toyota teams continued to litter the top spots in test sessions and exercised a consistency that was lacking throughout the previous NASCAR season.
In addition to the gains made for MWR, the tests at California and Las Vegas have served a gage for what teams can expect during the season.
"We run a lot more of these types of race tracks and race these cars a lot more than we do restrictor-plate races or short tracks," Jarrett said. "This test is very big for everybody. It helps for us to validate what we've done at other tracks over the winter and shows we are heading in the right direction."
"I know that Toyota has continued to work extremely hard on our engine package to get the power where we need it," Jarrett added. "To me, that seems to be a lot better than what we had last year. I don't think all of this is happening as a coincidence to Joe Gibbs Racing coming on board. I'm sure they've been very helpful with all the teams but I know that I've seen their people at our shop and around our garage when we've been testing and I'm very pleased about that."
