It was always a big deal when a Sprint Cup hauler pulled into Greenville-Pickens Speedway. The track wouldn't announce it, but it didn't have to.

If you spotted a team transporter driving about Easley, S.C., you knew where it was headed. Someone would call a local radio station, and before noon the word would be out. By mid-afternoon there might be a few hundred people standing on the hills around the half-mile facility, watching a NASCAR driver test on a race track that was technically closed to the public.

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For years, the routine was the same. NASCAR teams got around the sanctioning body's testing limits by fine-tuning their Martinsville setups at Greenville-Pickens. The local track received free publicity, not to mention several thousand dollars in rental fees.

That all changed late last year, when in an attempt to save teams money in a struggling economy, NASCAR banned testing at all its sanctioned venues. Greenville-Pickens, the second-oldest sanctioned track in NASCAR and a place where Bill France Sr. once promoted races, was suddenly as off-limits as Daytona or Talladega.

Until Wednesday, when NASCAR tweaked its testing policy and announced that beginning in 2010, teams would be allowed to test on a select number of tracks that host regional events, but not the sport's national tours. Greenville-Pickens is one of 14 tracks that met that criteria, which was welcome news to marketing director Keith Cochran.

"It was a big loss to us last year, and I think NASCAR has since rethought that policy, because the local tracks were kind of being penalized," he said. "So I think they rethought that policy over this past year, and we're just thrilled. It's a big help to a local weekly race track.

"Our location is particularly good for [NASCAR teams] because they're just up the road in Mooresville [N.C.] and can be here in an hour-and-a-half or so. That's why they've used Greenville-Pickens quite a lot. We're ecstatic about the whole thing."

The 2010 policy still prohibits teams from the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Camping World Truck and Camping World East and West circuits from testing on tracks that host events on NASCAR's national levels. But it exempts tracks that host only events at the regional level, which includes Camping World East and West, the Whelen Modified Tour and the Whelen Southern Modified Tour.

Other than Greenville-Pickens, the list includes South Boston (Va.) Speedway; Tri-County Motor Speedway (N.C.); Thompson (Conn.) International Speedway; Adirondack International Speedway (N.Y.); All-American Speedway (Calif.); Madera (Calif.) Speedway; Douglas County (Ore.) Speedway; Toyota Speedway at Irwindale (Calif.); Colorado National Speedway; Thunderhill Raceway (Texas); and three road courses, Lime Rock Park (Conn.); Portland (Ore.) International Raceway; and Miller Motorsports Park (Utah).

"I think it's by far going to help us," said Rita Martin, general manager of Tri-County Motor Speedway, a half-mile track outside Hickory, N.C. "This is a perfect opportunity to be a success, to actually pick up the economy around the area if we have these guys coming in. I think it's going to be awesome."

Not all of these tracks enjoyed the regular business from NASCAR's national-level teams that Greenville-Pickens once did. Martin said Dale Earnhardt Inc. once tested at Tri-County, and Thompson operations director Russ Dowd said his facility would host Sprint Cup testing about two days each year before the ban was put into place.

With so few sanctioned test sites available for next year, everyone is hoping to lure the big boys. But next year's revised policy also will open the excepted tracks to Camping World East and West and the Modified tours, something that excites South Boston general manager Cathy Rice.

"I'm excited about it, because it did put a damper on us, the short tracks, last year when they put that ban in place. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't a good thing for NASCAR to do for the larger tracks and all, because I know the expenses have really gotten out of hand for the teams as they go and test. It's an expensive thing," she said.

"We look to get some help by using the track as a test track, and being able to have your Cup and Nationwide and Trucks come in to test, as well as your Camping World and Modified [tours]. It means a lot to us, and it's something we really need to help with expenses, because we're open 12 months a year. If the weather is OK, we can test cars the whole 12 months we're here."

The revised policy won't stop national series teams from venturing to places like New Smyrna Speedway and South Georgia Motorsports Park, non-NASCAR facilities that some organizations tested on while the total ban was in place. But for places like South Boston, which saw only occasional national-level testing before the ban -- most notably a Dale Earnhardt Jr. test in the new Sprint Cup car before a Martinsville race -- being one of only 14 sanctioned venues brings hope for more business.

"Now that they've lifted the test ban, I'm hoping to get what we weren't able to get last year when they put that test policy in effect," Rice said. "That's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping we're going to get those national teams now more so than we have in the past."

At Thompson, a five-eighths mile oval, Dowd feels the same way. "That would be very nice," he said of the prospect of national-series testing. "That would mean additional income for us. Hopefully the teams would feel this is another option for them."

At some tracks, there are hopes that being excepted from the testing ban will help make up for shortfalls in their regular weekly circuits. That's the case at Tri-County, where because of economic conditions Martin has seen fewer and fewer of her Friday night drivers willing to pay for practice time.

"I don't have half the practice I did when the economy was good," she said. "A lot of our regular guys can't afford to come and race and practice, so this gives us the opportunity to lure in some of the big guys who have bigger sponsors, that can afford to do stuff like this and give us little tracks the opportunity to make money."