Jamie McMurray shows off his fully painted Car of Tomorrow. Credit: Turner Sports New Media

Chasers, Toyotas, Cars of Tomorrow test at HMS

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The NASCAR Nextel Cup Series' present shared Homestead-Miami Speedway with a view to the future Monday as 56 2006 model racecars opened a three-day test at the 1.5-mile venue joined by seven 2007 models.

Credit: Turner Sports New Media

Top Speeds Monday afternoon at Homestead Pos. Driver Make Time 1. R. Sorenson Dodge 31.459 2. M. Truex Chevy 31.463 3. C. Mears Dodge 31.465 4. J. Burton Chevy 31.473 5. Ky. Busch Chevy 31.475 6. K. Harvick Chevy 31.478 7. C. Edwards Ford 31.520 8. J. Burton Chevy 31.522 9. M. Martin Ford 31.533 10. Ku. Busch Dodge 31.581 Monday evening at Homestead Pos. Driver Make Time 1. C. Mears Dodge 31.200 2. C. Mears Dodge 31.262 3. M. Truex Chevy 31.319 4. R. Gordon Chevy 31.333 5. G. Biffle Ford 31.338 6. T. Stewart Chevy 31.341 7. J. Mayfield Toyota 31.353 8. K. Harvick Chevy 31.399 9. J. Gordon Chevy 31.402 10. J. Burton Chevy 31.408

For the first time, the "standard" 2007 Toyota Camry shared a Nextel Cup venue on the same day with the 2007 "Car of Tomorrow" and a significant number of current cars that were preparing for the season-finale Ford 400 on Nov. 19.

Jeremy Mayfield, in the first of Bill Davis' new intermediate configuration Camrys to hit the racetrack, put it into the top 10 on the evening time sheet despite spending most of the day concentrating on race runs.

With new Chip Ganassi Racing pilot Juan Pablo Montoya an interested observer, Ganassi drivers Casey Mears -- who seriously threatened to win the 2006 season finale Ford 400 here and is still seeking his first Nextel Cup win -- and Reed Sorenson posted the quickest times in the three-hour night session and four-hour afternoon set, respectively.

Richard Childress Racing teammates Jeff Burton, the series championship leader and Kevin Harvick were the fastest of the 10 Chase for the Nextel Cup drivers who tested, in the morning [fourth overall] and evening [eighth overall], respectively.

With no significant incidents stopping practice, Mears, who like many of the 35 drivers on track for the test shared two cars, had the top two speeds of the day, during the evening at 31.20 seconds, an average speed of 173.077 mph, in a No. 42 Dodge and 31.262 / 172.734 in a No. 42B Charger.

In the warmer afternoon session, Sorenson's No. 41B car was clocked at 31.459 seconds, 171.652 mph, followed by Martin Truex Jr.'s No. 1 Dale Earnhardt Incorporated Chevrolet (31.463) and Mears' No. 42B (31.465).

Chase for the Nextel Cup contenders Burton (31.473) and Kyle Busch (31.475) rounded out the afternoon's top five.

In the evening Truex (31.319), Robby Gordon (31.333) and Greg Biffle (31.338) rounded out the top five.

Despite the fact that three of the five races remaining in the 2006 Chase are on 1.5-mile speedways, both Harvick, who is third in the Chase and Burton agreed that Homestead was a bit different.

In fact, on Monday, Mears' best lap was significantly slower than Carl Edwards' Bud Pole lap of a year ago, which was in 176.051 mph, but Harvick, who said he was testing both a new and a used Monte Carlo, said his team saw a particular value to the test.

"It seems like we're running the same speeds we ran last year," Harvick said. "We've got a new car, and it's good to be able to shake a car down and take some time with it, rather than show up and go with what you've got."

Burton went so far as to say that conditions would be so different on the Nov. 17-19 finale weekend for the Craftsman Truck, Busch and Nextel Cup Series to render it very difficult to determine what track conditions would exactly be like.

"Homestead's pretty unique and there is really no other track that we've run that's like this," Burton said. "But I think if done properly, a test is something that you can use for a lot of places.

"There's a tremendous amount of things we don't have time to do on [race] weekends that we can do at a test, so without a doubt there are things we'll be able to try [Monday and Tuesday] that we couldn't try on a normal race weekend.

"But it's too early to talk about next month, to be quite honest. The track is going to be way more rubbered-up. With three races on that weekend, there's a lot that's going to happen between now and then.

That's not to say he's not confident.

"Currently I feel pretty good about our cars because they're both fast and they drive pretty well," he said. "We brought two different styles of cars, trying to learn something and I think we could make both of them work."

The Homestead test is also open to teams to test their Car of Tomorrow prototypes. Five teams opted to do that Monday and Burton said RCR's COT would be at the track Tuesday.

Carl Edwards was the only driver who put in a significant number of laps in both vehicles Monday, as his team had one of each, as did Roush Racing teammate Jamie McMurray.

Edwards didn't run his COT in the afternoon session, when his standard car ran a seventh best lap of 31.52 seconds. In the evening, Edwards' standard car was only about three tenths faster than his COT, which was the fastest example at the test, 31.534 seconds to 31.828 for the COT.

McMurray ran most of the day in the COT, which was fully painted and decaled. His standard car ran 31.823 seconds, five one-hundredths of a second faster than Edwards' COT -- but McMurray's COT was the slowest of 58 cars that ran in the evening, at 32.477.

Dave Blaney (Bill Davis Racing Toyota), Johnny Benson (Wyler Racing Toyota) and Kerry Earnhardt (DEI Chevrolet) also tested COT prototypes.

Mayfield, who said his BDR team had a number of different nose configurations to try on its standard Camry but worked primarily on front suspension geometry Monday, was seventh in the evening speed chart at 31.353 seconds, slightly better than Mike Skinner's Team Red Bull Camry, which was 45th on the sheet at 31.755.

"The thing ran good, and we just kept working on it all day and kept getting it better and better," Mayfield said. "We ran it in race configuration and then got it to where both Dave and I were comfortable with it on long runs.

"We kept working on it and giving it what it needed and it came in real well there, at the end. We were going to go out and try to be a little quicker yet, at the end but the track tightened up on us."

The Car of Tomorrow is the culmination of a five-year design program by NASCAR's Research and Development Center. The new car will begin competition in 2007 at the spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway and will race at 16 different events next season, 26 events in 2008 and all 36 events in 2009.

The Homestead-Miami test marks the final of six designated 2006 tests for Nextel Cup teams. At the beginning of this season, NASCAR instituted a new testing policy to "encourage a more level field of competition and help teams be more cost efficient."

The teams could only test at six venues that were used for Cup events this season: Daytona, Las Vegas, Richmond, Charlotte, Indianapolis, and Homestead.