NASCAR's testing ban doesn't seem to be working as well as officials might have hoped.
As expected, several teams have been cris-crossing the country over the past few weeks in attempt to shake down their race cars for the upcoming season. Instead, though, of testing at NASCAR sanctioned facilities, they've been testing at places such as General Motors' proving grounds in Mesa, Ariz., New Smyrna Speedway in Florida and Texas World Speedway.
The testing ban, instituted by NASCAR in November, forbid any NASCAR team from going to any NASCAR-sanctioned facility to help cut costs during the economic tailspin that has greatly affected many aspects of the racing industry.
And not so surprisingly, the effort to cut costs apparently hasn't been as gloriously successful -- although teams did avoid wasting their time in Daytona.
Rose Mattioli told The Associated Press on Tuesday there are no plans to sell Pocono, which currently has two Sprint Cup races, and there will be racing on the mountaintop for at least "as long as our grandkids live."
"It never was available; it never will be available," said Mattioli, who owns the track with her husband, Joseph. "My husband has stated that over and again. That's it."
The track is "entrusted" to the Mattioli's grandchildren, and because of that, the family isn't selling one of NASCAR's three remaining race tracks not owned by International Speedway Corp. or SMI.
However, the track did open on Tuesday for some scheduled Sprint Cup Series testing.
Teams, fresh off the 600 miles at Lowe's Motor Speedway Sunday night, headed to Pennslyvania for the test which runs through Wednesday evening at the three-turn wanna-be road course track
Tuesday, teams got in about 4 hours of practice until rain canceled activities for the day -- meaning many, many Sprint Cup drivers were likely bored out of their minds.
David Gilliland paced the session while Dario Franchitti made his first laps in a stock car after getting injured over a month ago at Talladega.
Driver No. 88 hit the wall hard enough to prevent the damage from being repaired and further participation in the session for the Hendrick Motorsports driver. These was no word on whether Kyle Busch was involved. Grin.
Jamie McMurray paced Tuesday's finish session, but it was Dodge's Elliott Sadler taking fastest lap honors after running a lap of 186.245mph during the Monday night session.
In comparison, the pole speed for last year's Coca-Cola 600 was 185.312mph by Ryan Newman.
Teams were given a choice of six sessions -- three per day -- to test in with each team only allowed a maximum of four sessions. It appears that many teams opted not to test in the 9am-12pm session each day, as only 10 cars hit the track early on Monday and 13 on Tuesday.
I know I've said it before, but I've got to commend NASCAR on giving teams this extra test session. For the good of the sport, at least, teams are going to have a better idea on what they can throw at a race car.
It's not too often that NASCAR will change the course of its previously set direction, so Tuesday should be celebrated.
The sanctioning body announced today that it will indeed take up the opportunity Lowe's Motor Speedway has granted to test at the 1.5-mile track on May 5 & 6. Originally, Concord, N.C.-based LMS wasn't on the master plan for the Cup Series to have an official test at the track.
According to the presser, many drivers and teams campaigned heavily for the track time at the venue that is a virtually a hometown to every Sprint Cup team at Phoenix over the weekend:
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR announced today the addition of a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series test session May 5-6 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. On May 5 practice times are set from 9 a.m. – 12 noon; 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.; and 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. On May 6 practice times are set from 9 a.m. – 12 noon and 1 p.m. – 5p.m. Teams may test a maximum of four of those five practice segments. NASCAR visited with the teams this past weekend at Phoenix about the possibility of adding a test to further prepare for the remaining 17 events the series has at intermediate tracks the rest of the season, including next month's NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
"We received input from the teams last weekend at Phoenix and a vast majority of them were receptive to adding a test next month at Lowe's," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President of Competition"
It's a step in the right direction, if nothing else, to help get teams and drivers better acquainted with the next-generation race car, and in turn, to make the racing better.
As of a western swing through Fontana, Calif. and Las Vegas, Nev. wasn't enough, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series got its fourth official test session wrapped up in Phoenix on Tuesday afternoon.
The test at Phoenix International Raceway was the fourth of six that teams suggested to NASCAR prior to the season, and joins Daytona, California, and Vegas as tracks the teams have tested at.
Only Pocono and Lowe's Motor Speedway remain on the official Sprint Cup series testing docket. Teams can otherwise only test on tracks that the Sprint Cup series doesn't compete on.
Juan Pablo Montoya -- who was fastest during the Las Vegas test prior to the season -- again led all drivers over the five different sessions offered. The No. 42 put down a lap of 131.459mph in the Tuesday morning test session.
If there's a prettier scene than that in NASCAR, I've yet to see it.
I didn't say the racing was amazing in California -- frankly, it's not -- but it's still a gorgeous background. Almost on par with Labor Day in the Darlington, S.C.-area.
Almost.
Anyways, Jeff Gordon took top honors in the afternoon session Thursday with his lap of 180.505mph on his 75th lap of the session. Yes, seventy-fifth.
The California-native, though, didn't pace the overall speed chart from the morning and afternoon sessions as that honor belonged to Denny Hamlin's Toyota with a lap of 182.523.
Ryan Newman, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, and Gordon's lap from the morning session rounded out the top-5 in the cumlative morning and afternoon results.
Teams were given the option over the two-day California Speedway test to choose from four of the five sessions offered. Three were offered Thursday (including one under the lights) and two on Friday, to give teams either a chance to test at night for when they return for the track's second date in September or to head home Friday afternoon.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. sat out the first session on Thursday meaning he'll be around until the track closes Friday afternoon.
As of this post, times haven't been posted for the night session. Until then, go back to looking at that gorgeous picture.
Juan Pablo Montoya made a big statement Tuesday afternoon at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to doubters of the NASCAR's next-generation race car for the Sprint Cup series.
Turning a lap of 186.761mph, Montoya would have taken the official track record away from Kasey Kahne (184.856mph in 2007) had it been an official qualifying session.
But one thing Montoya did was to prove that the new race car isn't as slow as everyone thought, and that teams are adapting to the packages well. It should be noted, of course, that teams aren't loudly disapproving of the tires that Goodyear brought like they did last year for the race at Vegas.
As you may recall, Tony Stewart's approval of the tires in '07 terms for describing them was "crap" on the newly configured surface.
As teams, though, head into their travel/work day before testing at California Speedway on Thursday and Friday, the general consensus seems to be that teams are getting a handle on the car and the track in Vegas. That's only good news for race fans.
Jeff Burton tore up a race car early Tuesday while Tony Stewart scraped the wall and Michael Waltrip looped his -- all in turn three. The test session was ended a few minutes early after Jeff Gordon laid oil down on the track.
Keep it here at NASCAR Fanhouse for plenty of updates on the Sprint Cup testing in California.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers needed just one day to get the next-generation race car up to speed Monday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during the first leg of the west coast swing of preseason testing.
Kyle Busch led all drivers in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on his 28th lap of the day with a speed of 183.580mph.
That lap is just over one mile per hour slower than the track record that Kasey Kahne set last February, and will likely silence some critics of the new car who complain that its too slow.
Tony Stewart, in another Joe Gibbs Racing entry, put two of his Toyotas in second and third on the speed chart in the afternoon session. Carl Edwards' No. 99 cars were fourth and fifth.
According to Jayski, quite a few drivers made contact with the wall -- and in one case, a concrete piling.
Some Incidents during a very windy day at Las Vegas included: #01-Smith spun off turn two in the early session and spun around and smacked the nose into the inside wall. #77-Hornish scraped the wall hard. #40-Franchitti spun and the rear of the car was heavly damaged. #27-Villeneuve spun around but failed to hit anything. #6-Ragan spun off turn 2, the car was pretty much destroyed. #8-Martin hit a cement piling avoiding a tow truck in the garage area, doing damage to the front end of the car.
Those events alone made Monday's test session more exciting than the two weeks of testing at Daytona that have already taken place.
But really, a concrete piling, Mark? That's got to be a good story.
The first western swing of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 2008 campaign hits full stride Monday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The second scheduled stop of the Preseason Thunder testing sessions will offer drivers their first opportunity to turn laps at Vegas in the new model of NASCAR race cars. Sprint Cup Series director John Darby thinks that's nothing but a good thing.
"The good part of it is we're not all worried about it," said Darby, referring to the flurry of criticism that followed last years new car testing.
"All that's behind us."
The test -- it runs Monday and Tuesday at LVMS -- will also give the drivers a better idea as to what the new car feels like without a restrictor plate on the motor and in the exact specifications that the teams will come back with in March for the third race of the year.
A travel day is scheduled for Wednesday as teams make the trek towards California Speedway in Fontana, site of the first "normal" race following the Daytona 500 in February. Once they've arrived, the garages will be open for any work teams need to get done before testing on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday's session runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. while Friday's goes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. -- local times of course.
Darby said that because of the new car's design requirements, many teams will bring two cars total out west instead of swapping in the middle of the week like years past when teams would build track-specific cars. The new car has much fewer tolerances as a cost-saving measure.
Check back at NASCAR Fanhouse throughout the week for recaps and speeds or bookmark NASCAR Testing for complete testing coverage.
The first stop of the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour in Charlotte, N.C. didn't have a whole lot of buzz surrounding it, and if you ask some people, that was a very good thing.
That first stop? A stop by NASCAR's Research and Development Center in Concord for the sanctioning body to announce a few changes for the coming season. The past has seen the Top-35 rule and the Chase points system announced at this event.
This year, though, we didn't get a huge, Earth-shattering announcement.
Instead, NASCAR fans got one of those decisions that is, well, smart. In 2008, teams in all three of NASCAR's top divisions within the top-35 of owner point standings will still be guaranteed a start in the next race, but those teams that aren't in that range will all qualify together at the end of each qualifying session. From the NASCAR Scene:
"NASCAR officials have announced changes to the qualifying procedures in all three of their national series, putting the teams outside of the locked-in group on a more level playing field.
The teams not locked into the starting field in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series will all qualify as a group at the end of their respective qualifying sessions under the new rules."
The impact of this will be felt immediately during Daytona Speedweeks in February. Teams used to draw a qualifying order, so a go-or-go-home car might qualify first during the heat of the day, while another go-or-go-home entry could qualify last when the sun is going down.
That temperature change can significantly affect speeds.
NASCAR's testing ban doesn't seem to be working as well as officials might have hoped.
Bruton Smith
The 
It's not too often that NASCAR will change the course of its previously set direction, so Tuesday should be celebrated.
As of a western swing through Fontana, Calif. and Las Vegas, Nev. wasn't enough, the NASCAR 
Juan Pablo Montoya
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers needed just one day to get the next-generation race car up to speed Monday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway during the first leg of the west coast swing of preseason testing.
The first western swing of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 2008 campaign hits full stride Monday morning at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The first stop of the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour in Charlotte, N.C. didn't have a whole lot of buzz surrounding it, and if you 
