Hendrick's Busch team to test Grand Prix
By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
January 21, 2002
1:45 PM EST (1845 GMT)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- More than 20 NASCAR Busch Series teams opened a two-day open test session Monday at Daytona International Speedway, and Hendrick Motorsports plans to split its laps between Chevrolets and Pontiacs.
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Jack Sprague will campaign the No. 24 this season in the Busch Series.
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Car-swapping aside, Hendrick driver Jack Sprague, who won three NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championships before jumping back to the Busch Series, counts himself as happy to simply be getting back to work.
"I think everybody's excited just to be back at the race track," Sprague said. "Everybody wishes the years would be over and then when they're over two weeks later everybody wishes we were still racing. Include me in that number."
Due to a perceived advantage enjoyed by the Pontiac Grand Prix under the Busch Series rules, team owner Rick Hendrick instructed his teams to build a pair of superspeedway Pontiacs. Therefore, Jack Sprague has a No. 24 Chevrolet and a No. 24 Pontiac and teammate Ricky Hendrick has a No. 5 Pontiac and Chevrolet in Daytona's garage area.
Several teams that primarily ran Chevrolets last season used Pontiacs at Daytona and Talladega, including defending Daytona winner Randy LaJoie, former winner Joe Nemechek the Brewco teams of Jeff Purvis and Jamie McMurray and Buckshot Racing.
Nemechek won the Bud Poles for both 2001 races in Pontiacs, and the Grand Prix won both races, with LaJoie and Mike McLaughlin, whose Joe Gibbs Racing team ran Pontiacs all season.
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The No. 19 Chevrolet of Tim Sauter goes through inspection at Daytona.
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"Rick told us to build one of each and whichever tested better would be the one we'd run," Sprague's crew chief Dennis Connor said. "But we probably won't truly know that until we get done with this test session and see that no rules get changed around because of the results of the test."
After two three-day sessions of Winston Cup testing, the jury is still out on whether or not any rule changes will occur in that division before stock car Speedweeks, which begin Feb. 5.
Connor said his two drivers had done a brief test session last week at Concord Motorsport Park near their shops in Harrisburg, N.C., but that this would be the first true test and the first time out of the shop for the Pontiacs.
"It's about as difficult to get in the wind tunnel as it is to find a place to go test in this day and time," Connor said. "We did actually get to take both of our (Chevrolet) Monte Carlos to Lockheed (wind tunnel in Marietta, Ga.), but not having any Busch experience to base our numbers on we're not really sure how good they were or what to compare them to.
"Compared to the Hendrick Winston Cup cars they were right there," Connor said of the cars that ended six days of testing with the first, fifth, eighth and 13th best speeds of 54 drivers that tested. "We weren't able to get another wind tunnel opportunity to take the Pontiacs, so I guess we're gonna run them at the wind tunnel that counts -- the big black wind tunnel."
"We're anxious to do something but this place can certainly mentally wear you down trying to find speed," Sprague said. "If you're not fast from the get-go you're really in trouble. Who knows -- we've got a couple new cars and hopefully at least one of them will be good.
"We've got the great experiment going on and I've got my opinion on which one of them will be faster but we'll see. I'm just happy to be racing again."
Connor said he had heard that Nemechek and LaJoie had already tested Chevrolets and Pontiacs back-to-back at Talladega earlier this month. They are both scheduled to test Thursday and Friday at Daytona with the even-numbered finishers in the 2001 NASCAR Busch Series car owner points.
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