Testing, More Testing and Chili Bowl

January 13, 2008
By Kim Roberson

Kim Roberson

Ahhhh…the sounds of high performance engines have re-appeared. Testing is here, the Chili Bowl has a new owner of the Golden Driller.

Racing is BACK!

Monday morning I was driving to work listening to my Sirius radio, and a woman called into the show from Daytona. In the background, you could hear cars driving past as they made their first laps of 2008.

I have no idea what she said, but I cranked the radio up just to hear the occasional “whoosh” as the cars went by.

As soon as I got to the office, I began searching for a live blog, pictures, anything that would start getting me back into the spirit of racing for 2008. If you Google, you can find pretty much anything.

I Googled and found a live camera shot of the track at Daytona. It isn’t the greatest, but you can watch the cars (or trucks this weekend) come down the front stretch and drive past. Sometimes alone, sometimes in packs. You can’t hear anything, but you can imagine the sound as they go by.

Whoosh.

Testing is far from exciting, especially for the drivers. For the fans, however, it is the first teasing of what is to come in just five weeks. (Yes, five weeks from today is the 50th annual Daytona 500!) It was also the first chance we had to see what the new combinations of teams, drivers, and manufacturers had to offer. While it wasn’t too much of a shock to see the Hendrick Motorsports teams at the top of the chart, what was surprising was to see a pack of Toyota’s right behind them.

Kyle Busch, A.J. Allmendinger, David Reutimann, and rookie Jacques Villeneuve were consistently in the top ten in testing speeds each day. One driver each from the four different Toyota teams, with Shrub showing that the Joe Gibbs Racing move to Toyota might not be the disastrous decision many thought it was. Of course, it is ONLY testing, and the real test of how well the teams will perform will come during Speed Weeks, but considering how poorly the Toyotas were a year ago, I’d say it is going to be a very interesting year.

The other big event this week was the 22nd annual Chili Bowl National’s in Tulsa, OK. I’ll admit I have no idea who won last night because I didn’t pay for the HBO pay per view coverage. That said I did listen to the live coverage on the computer Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.

I am even newer to midget racing than I am to NASCAR racing, and I still find myself losing track of who moves to what race in the alphabet soup that creates heat races. And once they win the qualifying races, how are they stacked up in the main feature Saturday night. My trip to Eldora’s Prelude to the Dream last year introduced me to dirt track racing and heat races, however because it was a celebrity show, everyone who raced in the heat races also raced in the main race.

What I do know is that Tony Stewart won his heat race, and then came in 5th in his A main on Thursday night. J.J. Yeley did not have as good of a night, coming in 12th in his B-main race, which meant he didn’t even get into the A-main. This meant both of them had to spend yesterday trying to race their way into the A-main championship race. On Friday, both Jason Leffler and Kasey Kahne advanced to last nights Championship race by finishing 3rd and 4th respectively in their A-main.

Tomorrow kicks off week two of testing at Daytona, and the highlight of the week is expected to be Dale Junior’s first appearance with his new team on the track. With all the notes they should have received from the 5, 24, and 48, it won’t be surprising in the least to see him firmly ensconced at or near the top of the charts all week. That said, Stewart will be making his first appearance at testing in four years to get time behind the wheel of his new Toyota Camry, and we may find that the 20 is looking to show that just because he is in a new car doesn’t mean he has lost his knack at super speedways.

The 2008 season is officially underway. I can’t wait to get the cars on the track and have the green flag wave on another great season.

Discuss this and other racing matters in the Prodigys@Speed Forum

You can contact Kim at.. Insider Racing News

    Read other articles by Kim Roberson

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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