Inside the Garage: No. 1 crew chief Bono Manion (cont'd)

Q: Having said all that, you've got to be pleased with how well you've come to grips with this COT, having won at Dover, and how comfortable Martin seems to be with it.

Manion: Oh yeah. I mean, the first three COT races, we qualified in the top 10 for all three of them. DEI has not cut corners on this -- we've tested an awful lot.

I remember building one of these cars to help the [NASCAR] R&D program. We tested at Homestead last year with Kerry [Earnhardt]. We were at the Charlotte test last year with Dale Jr. and Martin and we went to the Talladega test [last fall].

So DEI has put their fair share of time in on this car. And like I said, we're not done testing yet. So we're extremely pleased with the way things are going with that car.

We're just now starting to get into our mile-and-a-half program that we're going to have to get ready for next year. We're going to start [a test at] Kentucky up here, pretty quick, to test four or five times before the end of the year.

Q: Sorry for what might be incorrect COT terminology, but have you tested what would be considered an intermediate COT car?

Manion: We brought it to Charlotte and made about five laps during the test there last month. It was our Darlington car and we had a couple ideas and we just wanted to run it at a higher speed place, just to get a couple ideas on what was going to happen.

We got accomplished what we needed to, but it definitely opened our eyes up on a couple of the areas, so it was a good idea.

Any time you can get on track, with the correct tire [is good] -- because that's been our biggest issue, is having the correct tire to test with.