Wind makes for difficult testing conditions at LVMS

LAS VEGAS -- Sprint Cup teams expected to deal with a number of unknown variables heading into this week's testing at Las Vegas and California. But one thing that may have thrown them a curve Monday morning was the weather.

Rain pelted Las Vegas Motor Speedway the night before -- and when they arrived at the track, teams found themselves facing steady winds of near 20 mph, combined with gusts that sometimes reached more than 40 mph. It was supposed to remain gusty for the rest of the day.

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So now in addition to trying to deal with fine-tuning NASCAR's new chassis on intermediate tracks, drivers were left trying to figure out how to adapt to the changing conditions. Couple that with the relative newness of the Las Vegas track surface -- which resulted in several accidents during last season's testing -- and drivers like Scott Riggs were already thinking about what they might face.

"I think it's going to be something that affects you getting into one corner one way and affect you the very opposite way at the other corner," Riggs said. "The way the wind's blowing, you're probably going to be really secure getting into Turn 1. You probably won't have any issues there. But in Turn 3, you're going to be really free getting into the corner and then coming off the corner's going to be the opposite.

"You've just got to take that into consideration and continue to work on your balance or whatever it is that's aggravating you the worst."

David Reutimann said everyone is facing the same conditions. And with only two days, there's little you can do but go out and run, and hope for the best.

"It's gusting so much and so high, it just makes the car do things it normally wouldn't do," Reutimann said. "Especially when the wind is blowing across the track.

"It will probably make the car be tight from the center off [in Turns 1 and 2] and probably make it loose on entry because it's blowing on the nose [in 3 and 4]. As much as it's gusting, I'm pretty sure it probably will do something.

"Maybe it'll get a little bit better. I don't know what the forecast is. It's clearly not ideal but you've only got a couple of days so you've got to do something."

Before the morning session started, Jimmie Johnson was already battling the wind gusts as he walked to his No. 48 Chevrolet.

"Can you believe this?" Johnson said. "We might get blown over to the truck."

"Every track but probably Bristol is susceptible to wind. For how hard that's blowing down the backstretch, Turn 3 is going to be a big problem."

Kurt Busch said the best way to deal with the conditions was to take a conservative approach.

"If you're going to be smart about it, you're going to take your time getting up to speed," Busch said. "You've got to see what the grip level is like, of the tire versus the track."

Five drivers were able to top 178 mph before a short shower ended the first session prematurely. Denny Hamlin's 30.292-second lap was .001 better than Clint Boywer. Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five.

The lone incident came early, when Regan Smith crashed and did moderate damage to the left-front fender of his No. 01 Chevrolet.

The sun came out during the lunch break, quickly drying the asphalt surface -- and on-track activities resumed.

Tuesday's forecast is significantly better: light winds and a high in the upper 40s.