Goodyear prepares for Daytona

November 4, 1:42 PMLouisville NASCAR ExaminerAmanda Vincent

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Jamie McMurray participates in a tire test at Daytona International Speedway earlier this week.

NASCAR Media

The 2009 season may not be over yet, but it's not too early for NASCAR to start looking ahead to 2010, especially to the 2010 Daytona 500 -- just over three months away.

Monday and Tuesday, 18 cars and 17 drivers participated in a tire test at Daytona International Speedway in preparation for next year's Daytona 500, scheduled for Feb. 14, 2010.

Drivers on hand for the test included Kyle Busch, David Ragan, Sam Hornish Jr., Brad Keselowski, David Reutimann, Marcos Ambrose, Regan Smith, A.J. Allmendinger, Scott Speed, Erik Darnell, Paul Menard, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, Kurt Busch and Sterling Marling.

The drivers ran their cars in both single-car and drafting sessions.

According to Kurt Busch, the format of this test was the best possible way for Goodyear to gather the most accurate information in preparation for next year's 500.

"It's good participation for most of the teams," he said. "It almost feels like a 150 (the Daytona 500 qualifying race). You have half the group on the race track, but yet there's only 18. It still gives us 18 data points on each of the runs that we make, and it's definitely the best way to gather information."

McMurray, who participated in the previous test at Daytona in May, said that the format used this week was much better than the one utilized back in May.

"We cam in May, and they made the restrictor plates bigger to simulate the same lap times as what we do in the draft, and that didn't show the same wear," McMurray said. "The fact that they brought so many cars here this time -- I think we have 16 cars doing a draft at a time. The cars are not driving really that good. They are sliding around a lot, and Goodyear is able to get a lot more accurate data by having so many cars here.

Tickets for the 2010 Daytona 500 and other Speedweeks events are still availabe. For information, visit www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com or call 1-800-PIT-SHOP.

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