The first NASCAR test of the 2015 season is scheduled to take place Monday when four Sprint Cup Series teams participate in a one-day Goodyear tire test at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The teams of Kurt Busch (Stewart-Haas Racing) and AJ Allmendinger (JTG Daugherty Racing) will be on hand as representatives for Chevrolet; Matt Kenseth (Joe Gibbs Racing) is the Toyota entry while Brad Keselowski (Team Penske) and his No. 2 Ford team will be on hand to round out the test teams and vehicles.
According to a Team Penske representative, Keselowski’s teammate Joey Logano, crew chief Todd Gordon and several members of the No. 22 Team Penske group will be on hand as well to help and observe.
In previous years, tire tests haven’t generated a great deal of interest. Now that NASCAR no longer allows private team testing, however, track time is considered more valuable.
The NASCAR National Series Unified Testing Policy, announced last month, consists of three types of tests for 2015 — NASCAR-approved tire tests, NASCAR tests and open team tests.
Goodyear has scheduled 14 tests for the upcoming season; Monday’s trip to Las Vegas is the only one currently on the schedule that does not dovetail with a team test. Others will be either one- or two-day tires tests followed by a single-day team test.
For now, only a stop next month at Atlanta will see teams test prior to a Goodyear tire test at the facility. Teams will be given a four-hour window for testing one day before the start of that track’s race weekend. A two-day Goodyear tire test will be conducted at the track on March 2-3 after the completion of the Sprint Cup event. In all other cases, the team test will come after the Goodyear test is completed.
“We think the fact that they’re going to be testing on tracks they will actually be racing on … they’ll get a lot more value out of this,” Gene Stefanyshyn, NASCAR Senior Vice President Innovation and Racing Development, said last month.
“They did get value out of what we did in the past, but this will just be more in line with where they’re going to be racing.”
There is no team testing scheduled for the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Teams in those series will be given extended practice time during race weekends.
