Notes: Endurance test follows drivers to LVMS

LAS VEGAS -- With more than 100 race-ready cars in the auxiliary garage and parked in front of haulers, the garage area at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was busier than a normal race weekend as teams arrived at the track Monday morning for a two-day test.

That was also the case for the guys in the Goodyear garage.

No fewer than 14 tire mounting stations were lined up side by side, and they were all in operation at once, mounting and un-mounting tires as quickly as possible.

Another kind of tired

Drivers who competed in the 24-hour endurance race at Daytona this weekend faced a red-eye, cross-country jaunt to get to the test session at Las Vegas, and it showed.

About the time Scott Riggs rolled onto the track to begin the session, Rolex 24 co-winner Juan Montoya was still in street clothes, walking between his car and hauler while wearing a gray fleece pullover. As Tony Stewart walked by, carrying a black shirt in a dry-cleaning bag, Jeff Burton veered his car toward Stewart to get a smile out of him. And Jeff Gordon also got a late start once he arrived at the track.

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Ricky Rudd was nattily attired in a brown Snickers uniform. That's a change from Daytona, where he was wearing a generic black-and-white suit.

Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann were driving their new paint schemes, while Jeff Burton's No. 31 was still adorned with Cingular stickers. The AT&T-BellSouth merger is expected to eliminate the Cingular brand, and there's still discussion as to how that will ultimately affect sponsorship with the Richard Childress-owned team.

Birds of a feather

It's not often that something can drown out the sound of an Air Force fighter jet, but once the commotion commenced in the garage area, it rivaled the decibel level of the jets practicing touch-and-go landings at nearby Nellis Air Force Base.

In addition, there was the never-ending procession of front-end loaders and dump trucks involved in the construction of several new infield buildings.

At the same time, a group of sparrows chirped happily as they flitted around a pile of race tires in one corner of the garage area, seemingly oblivious to everything else going on.