NASCAR
Weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will begin on Thursday with a Sprint Cup
Series practice session for the new Gen 6 cars. Practice will take place from
8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is free to the public.
A number
of drivers shared their thoughts on testing and racing in the new NASCAR Gen 6
cars at LVMS this weekend.
“I think
the cars are obviously really fast because they have more down force,” said
Richard Childress Racing driver Kevin Harvick. “Everyone's anticipation of
getting to Las Vegas and getting all of the cars on the race track at the same
time is pretty high, just for the fact that no one can tell you exactly what's
going on. You really don't know what will happen until you get into 100 percent
race conditions. The test on Thursday, and the race, will at least give us a
direction of where we need to go after the weekend so we can work on things.
It's going to be interesting and we'll see very fast, high speeds.”
“Las
Vegas is one place that this FedEx team has run pretty well at over the years,
but has never really gotten the results we deserve,” said Kevin Hamlin. “It’s a
fast track with quite a bit of banking, and it’s hard to get your car just
right. It will be the first race for these new cars on an intermediate track,
so it’ll be interesting to see how they react when you get around another car.
It’ll give us a chance to see how we stack up against some of the other teams
early in the season, knowing there are a lot of mile-and-a-half tracks on our
schedule. Hopefully we’ll be able to qualify near the front and be there at the
end.”
“I’m jacked up about heading to Vegas,” said
Ford driver Greg Biffle. “One, I love to gamble, and two, I love that race
track. We run really well there. We’ve got the American Red Cross on the car
this weekend and I just can’t wait to get there. It takes a lot of things to win at
Vegas. Track position is key and you
need to have the right pit stop at the end.
We’ve been really close to winning in the Cup car before and hopefully
this is it.”
“We learned a lot at the Charlotte test in
January that will help us out in Vegas with this new 2013 Gen 6 Ford,” said
Biffle’s crew chief, Matt Puccia. “The 1.5-mile tracks have been our strong
suit in the past and we are hoping to capitalize on that in 2013. Last season we finished third at Vegas and
took over the points lead, we are looking to pick up where we left off last
season.”
“We’ve
had some success in Las Vegas winning the very first race in 1998,” said Toyota
driver Mark Martin. “Sure, we can do that again. We led 75 laps Sunday (at
Phoenix) so we know we’re capable of running well. We’ll just need to put the
whole race together. But we can do that. These guys give me good cars each
weekend. We’ll see what we can learn Thursday during the test and hopefully
have something for them on Sunday. With this new Gen-6 car, the window of
opportunity is open for all these teams to find something and have a big
advantage over the rest of the field for several weeks.”
"Vegas
has always been a good track for us,” said Australia’s Marcos Ambrose, who
drives for Richard Petty Motorsports. “We did well at the Charlotte test in the
offseason, so I look forward to seeing our speed at a mile-and-a-half track
this weekend. I'm sure everyone has improved as well, but I think we can still
be the leaders. Our guys are working hard, and we have a lot of smart guys
preparing our Ford Fusions. We're still learning the new cars, but I don't
think we're behind. In fact, we may be ahead of some.”
Kyle Busch is a native of Las Vegas and also
the winner of the 2009 Kobalt Tools 400. “I think I’m expecting that we really
don’t know what to expect,” said Busch. “How the car raced at Phoenix will be
much different when we get to Vegas. We’ll try to use the Thursday test day,
and the rest of the practices, as best we can and learn as much as we can about
this new car. So far, they drive good. They put more downforce to them. We
haven’t really gotten into a pack yet with the mile-and-a-half stuff to see how
they lead and follow. We’ve always qualified well at Vegas, and I’m hoping we
can keep that going and have some good track position to start the race with
our M&M’s Camry.”
Biffle
and Martin, along with Carl Edwards and Casey Mears, will participate in a
question-and-answer session in the Neon Garage at 3:45 p.m. Thursday. The
public is invited.
Tickets
for NASCAR Weekend are on sale at www.lvms.com or by calling (800) 644-4444.
Neon Garage passes, Lucky 7 preferred parking and driver introduction passes
also are available.
Follow
LVMS on Facebook and Twitter.
Las
Vegas Motor Speedway is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Speedway Motorsports, a
leading marketer and promoter of motorsports entertainment in the United
States. For more information visit
www.speedwaymotorsports.com.
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