Martin: First day of testing a waste of time
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Mark Martin said it was "idiotic" for NASCAR to only allow drivers to do single-car runs on the first day of testing at Daytona International Speedway.
NASCAR does not permit drivers to practice drafting in packs - and thus race conditions - on the first day, meaning Monday is a long day of cars running by themselves around the mammoth 2.5-mile speedway.
Drivers expect that NASCAR will allow drafting beginning on Tuesday afternoon.
"I feel that we're wasting our time with single-car runs," Martin said during the lunch break on Monday. "We should be drafting already, but it is what it is. We do get to start drafting tomorrow afternoon, so that's half a day sooner than we might have.
"Once we start drafting, we're really working on racing. The rest of this stuff is idiotic, with the [questions between driver and team]: 'Does this help? Not help? Is that faster? Is it not faster? Can you tell anything?' That's what we're doing right now.
"I guess we would do it for 15 days straight if they'd let us, but I don't believe you learn very much doing that. You learn a lot when you start drafting in 20-car packs. You can tell the changes that you make, you can have feedback, you can have input, you can make changes on the car that really make a difference in the way it handles."
Martin, who along with Aric Almirola will split the No. 8 car for Dale Earnhardt Inc., has taken over the same team that Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove for last year.
"I was out here at 7 o'clock when the gates opened because I only knew like two people on my team," Martin said. "They really have a great attitude and so do I. ... The right attitude, that's really paramount to me, [along with] working in sync with Dale Earnhardt Inc. as a four-car team."
