He swept both races at Talladega last year but finished 21st in the Daytona 500 to open this season. I' m going to Talladega with anticipation of running great. My anticipation is having a car that can do what I did last year. It is the plate change, though, that has all sides scrambling. Race teams have flocked to Talladega and Daytona in recent weeks to test their cars under the new requirements.
Speeds uniformly are down.
Earlier this week at Daytona, Mark Martin recorded laps around 185 mph, then cut short the test session two hours early. Jack Roush, the multiteam owner who fields cars for Martin, estimated the tighter plates take away about 25 horsepower. The cars don't have enough horsepower to let the drivers really have much say about what happens. Crewmen are confounded on what to do. The restrictor-plate change is going to make it that much tougher for us.