Hendrick team fastest at Daytona
*Credit to NASCAR.com*
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon on Tuesday continued their impressive Preseason Thunder testing, leading the morning session that included 36 cars at Daytona International Speedway.
Johnson was one of five drivers to top 186 mph in the session, which was delayed about 30 minutes while workers dried the steeply banked 2.5-mile superspeedway.
"The car has a lot of speed," Johnson said. "We're kind of at a point where we've noticed some things that will make it faster for qualifying but it will hurt us in the race, so we're just massaging some things around, making sure that the speed that we are running is legit that we don't have something we've overlooked that NASCAR is gonna take away from us in the [inspection] Room of Doom, as everybody calls it.
"Things are good, we've got some new guys on the team. Everyone is working together, jelling together ... and we're fast."
At the other end of the spectrum, Kasey Kahne's struggles continued on Day 2 of the three-day testing period.
Kahne ran 184.532 mph in the No. 9b car and 184.332 in the 9a on Tuesday morning, but still hasn't been among the top 12 in three test sessions.
Kahne earned his first Nextel Cup Series victory in the Spring 2005 race at Richmond, but otherwise last year was a forgettable season for the third-year driver. As a result, Evernham Motorsports overhauled its garage operations, launching the new look at Homestead for the 2005 season finale:
• The No. 91 team moved to the No. 19 car, driven by Jeremy Mayfield. It is led by team director Chris Andrews.
• The No. 19 team shifted to the No. 9 of Kahne. Kenny Francis is the team director.
• The No. 9 team joined the new No. 10 ride with driver Scott Riggs, led by acting team director Rodney Childers.
"We set out upon the 2005 season with high expectations and very clear goals of what we wanted to accomplish," team owner Ray Evernham said when the reorganization was announced in November. "We did achieve Kasey Kahne's first win, Jeremy's win at Michigan and getting Jeremy into the Chase for the Championship for the second year in a row. We launched our Busch program and brought home one win and two poles.
"But unfortunately we have had a poor fourth quarter for the second year in a row -- and the fourth quarter is when the Nextel Cup is won. We are not satisfied with our performance, and will not settle for another year like this one. This is not good enough for our organization. We are in this to win the Championship."
Most notable among the changes -- aside from the lack of a team for Bill Elliott -- is that the cars do not have traditional crew chiefs.
Tommy Baldwin Jr., Kahne's crew chief in 2004-05, left Evernham and has since joined Robert Yates Racing as crew chief for Elliott Sadler.
"I feel like there's a lot of pressure this year to make the Chase," Kahne said. "I can't miss the Chase three years in a row when Ray's got a car in it each year. That's just not what we need to do.
"Ray is changing teams. He's doing everything he can to make the 9 car better, to make the 19 car better, to make everybody better. It's time to get in there [the Chase]. It's time to perform and finish races. There's pressure to do that this year, but there's no expectations in '04. There was more last year that I didn't live up to, so maybe this year we'll do better."
Indeed, Kahne struggled throughout the 2005 season. He posted only five top-five finishes and eight top-10s -- dramatically fewer in both categories compared to '04.
"I showed my skill at Richmond and that was it," Kahne said. "It was really a pathetic year. Some of the things I did, some of the crashes I was in I didn't need to be in. I forced the issue. I knew my car was on the edge of crashing -- and I went past that edge and crashed. That was pretty bad driving, really. I felt like I made a lot of mistakes with bad racecars. I could have just handled those cars and drove to the finish. If I had finished 16th, 17th, 18th somewhere in there instead of crashing and finishing 40th or 42nd, that's where we lost a lot of points.
"If we had just finished races we probably would have finished five or six or seven spots better in the standings. I feel like I grew up a lot during the year and will calm down a little bit. You really can't make up for one of these cars like you can in sprint cars where you can get more aggressive and maybe make up for it. You just can't do that in a stock car."
The first Nextel Cup Series testing period runs through Wednesday, with two sessions each day. This week's testing features drivers who were in odd-numbered positions (as of July 13, 2005). Even-numbered owners'-points drivers are scheduled for Jan. 16-18.
Truck Series drivers will be at the track Jan. 13-15, and the Busch Series will wrap Preseason Thunder on Jan. 20-22.
