LVSportsBiz.com photos by Daniel Clark
NASCAR knows it has to be proactive to re-claim its market share of the competitive sports world, so some of the biggest driver names in NASCAR — from Brad Keselowski to Jimmie Johnson — came to Las Vegas Motor Speedway Thursday and Friday for a historic organizational test.
They performed single-car laps and ran two more drafting sessions on Friday, racing at high speeds around the 1.5-mile speedway in packs of up to 11 cars. NASCAR’s two-day test session was scheduled to help drivers get accustomed to the new 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series aero package that is designed to foster tighter racing.
LVSportsBiz.com photographer Daniel Clark went to Friday’s session to document the testing, which not only involved NASCAR’s big-time racers but crew chiefs and engineers collecting vital data, too. LVSportsBiz.com has installed two photo galleries, plus photos in this story.
More of Daniel Clark’s terrific photo work.
Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR champion, topped the speed chart Thursday at 178.885 miles per hour, while Keselowski hit the highest speed Friday at 178.436. All the while, laptops were open and data was being collected.
“I think it was a huge learning experience for us,” said Kevin Meendering, who is in his first year as Johnson’s crew chief. “We got out there in a decent pack and figured out what issues we’re going to have, what we need to work on and some direction of how we need to develop our cars. It’s going to be a trade-off of building speed in your car versus handling, and that’s going to be track dependent and is going to be a big learning curve, for sure.”
Meendering enjoyed soaking up the input from seven-time champion Johnson.
“It’s been great, and his feedback’s phenomenal,” Meendering said. “He really has a great understanding and feel for the car and gives great feedback, so it really makes my job a lot easier. The communication’s been great, he’s easy to talk to and I feel like the learning curve has been pretty quick.”
Even 2012 Cup Series champion Keselowski thought getting seat time in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford was important.
“We were pretty good, and I feel like, if we’re as fast as we were today when we come back to race, I feel like we’ll be a threat to win,” said Keselowski, who won the first playoff race in LVMS history in September. “(The car) is about as different as it can be, but it’s our job to master it and be the best with it. I feel like we learned some things and got better, and that’s kind of what you expect when you have something so much different than what we’re normally accustomed to, but I’m glad to see that’s how it played out.”
Bubba Wallace, driver of the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet, was happy to get back behind the wheel after the offseason and also see how the new cars handled in and out of the draft.
“It’s just good to get back in the car and knock the dust off,” Wallace said. “(The car) was completely different than what I expected. I expected it to be a little bit like the All-Star Race, but it had a lot more speed than that. When we got in the pack, it was a little bit of a handful, and we’ve still got to work on passing a little bit.
“It’s not quite plate racing, but (when you get out of the draft) you can hear the motor pick up a different octave and feel it in the seat. It’s just the fine balance of if you want your car really fast by yourself or really fast in the pack.”
LVMS’s first NASCAR tripleheader will take place March 1-3, with the Strat 200 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race set for Friday, the Boyd Gaming 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race following on Saturday and the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube anchoring the weekend on Sunday.
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