Goodyear says all Cup teams can test tires at Daytona next month
FONTANA, Calif. – Goodyear and potentially as many as 30 NASCAR Sprint Cup teams will head to Daytona International Speedway on Nov. 2-3, the Monday and Tuesday after Talladega, to try to figure out a tire for the 2010 Daytona 500.
The test is open to all teams, and about 25-30 are expected, Stu Grant, Goodyear’s manager of worldwide racing, said Friday at Auto Club Speedway in California. Goodyear expects that some multicar organizations will only send some of their drivers and teams. Typical Goodyear tests have only four teams, but it’s hard to simulate conditions and tire wear in the draft with so few cars.
“What happens [when] we go there, we have a test and everything goes great and then we go to the event and we tear up tires – it happens every race,” Grant said. “A lot of that is the race track because it’s really rough and so on.”
The test is being done after Talladega so teams don’t risk ruining a restrictor-plate car in it.
“We’re going to run two different combinations – half the guys on one tire and half the guys on another tire,” Grant said.
It will be the only chance Sprint Cup teams will have to run at Daytona prior to February as NASCAR has extended its moratorium on testing at tracks in its three national series through 2010.
