Testing changes to be announced soon?
UPDATE #3 John Darby, Sprint Cup series director, spoke with the media at Texas on Saturday:
Q: WHAT KIND OF A RESPONSE ARE YOU GETTING FROM TEAMS ON A TESTING POLICY FOR NEXT YEAR? IT SOUNDS LIKE THE TARGET NUMBER IS 12-16 DAYS NEXT YEAR.
DARBY: "I think you've got to look from when we started talking about testing back in June and everything that has happened up to today. The very first meeting in New Hampshire in June, it was guys we can do zero or we can make it wide open. Everybody went Aaargh! And they came back with all the different versions and a month later we kind of settled in on like 24 days. Now we're in early July and that's when Wall Street started going wham. And more importantly the teams within the last couple of weeks have got their planner boards out and started penciling in their 24 days and stood back and said, 'Holy Cow, how are we going to do this?' First of all, the test policy is probably the most team-controlled policy that NASCAR has. In other words, we're pretty much just the organizers and managers of it. We'll give the garage, for the most part, what they want. But this is a year in looking at '09 where zero isn't completely off the radar. It may be just to help the industry. I think we're pretty secure in the fact that 24 days is too much… if you've got zero here and our original 24-day plan, the likelihood of landing somewhere in the middle is pretty good. Testing is a year-by-year deal. Let's say it was nothing, it maybe for only '09. Everything starts coming back, looking ahead to '10, we might get it back. That's the most fluid policy we have. Something changes on it every year. Roanoke Times
Q: WHAT KIND OF A RESPONSE ARE YOU GETTING FROM TEAMS ON A TESTING POLICY FOR NEXT YEAR? IT SOUNDS LIKE THE TARGET NUMBER IS 12-16 DAYS NEXT YEAR.
DARBY: "I think you've got to look from when we started talking about testing back in June and everything that has happened up to today. The very first meeting in New Hampshire in June, it was guys we can do zero or we can make it wide open. Everybody went Aaargh! And they came back with all the different versions and a month later we kind of settled in on like 24 days. Now we're in early July and that's when Wall Street started going wham. And more importantly the teams within the last couple of weeks have got their planner boards out and started penciling in their 24 days and stood back and said, 'Holy Cow, how are we going to do this?' First of all, the test policy is probably the most team-controlled policy that NASCAR has. In other words, we're pretty much just the organizers and managers of it. We'll give the garage, for the most part, what they want. But this is a year in looking at '09 where zero isn't completely off the radar. It may be just to help the industry. I think we're pretty secure in the fact that 24 days is too much… if you've got zero here and our original 24-day plan, the likelihood of landing somewhere in the middle is pretty good. Testing is a year-by-year deal. Let's say it was nothing, it maybe for only '09. Everything starts coming back, looking ahead to '10, we might get it back. That's the most fluid policy we have. Something changes on it every year. Roanoke Times
11/01/08 The talk in the garage is that testing at Cup tracks next year, which NASCAR floated out the idea of about 24 days, could be reduced to about 12-16.
10/26/08 NASCAR VP of Communications Jim Hunter said the sanctioning body is rethinking the 24-day testing schedule given the current economic conditions. Testing has to make financial sense for the haves as well as the have-nots. FoxSports
10/20/08 NASCAR hasn't delineated the exact testing policy for the Sprint Cup Series, but apparently it will allow teams to test at any of the tour tracks, for a total of about 24 days a team per season. There are 22 tracks on the tour, so teams should be able to test everywhere. Winston Salem Journal