No less a savant than Eddie Wood predicted Wednesday, after just three mass-drafting runs on the opener of a two-day Goodyear tire test at Daytona International Speedway, that the 53rd Daytona 500 next February "might be one heck of a race, I can tell you that."

Unfortunately, Wood's revelation that he saw "some three-wide stuff and even a little bit of four-wide" formations during the drafts, which were carried out by the 18 teams at the track, also included the punctuation of a two-car wreck that cut short what Wood said would have been the longest drafting run of the day.

"As far as we're concerned, everything went really, really well," said Wood, whose father Glen Wood ran the legendary Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 Ford in the inaugural 1959 Daytona 500. "We got to make some single [car] runs, and then three drafting sessions for Goodyear, and all that went well. Working with Trevor [Bayne, rookie driver] went really well.

"They did 15 laps [in the morning], then 25 laps and the last one was supposed to have been 30 [laps] but the 6 and the 27 got together -- I don't know what happened on that -- but they did get together and wreck."

Wood said he only saw the aftermath of the crash that involved David Ragan and Paul Menard.

"It happened on down the race track, just past the tri-oval," Wood said. "I was on top of our hauler in the garage and I didn't see it. It tore up the 27 quite a bit and the 6 wasn't quite as bad but they weren't able to continue with them."

Wood said it was the only incident and that Goodyear "has got a great tire" and that "everything we saw [with the tires] was good."

Mark Martin was one of those who tested and, due to the newly paved track's infield being closed to the public, was part of a four-man consensus of opinion due to drivers' limited availability.

Martin, who has 131 career Daytona starts in stock cars, trucks, sports cars and IROC stretching back to 1982, had one surprising observation.

"There are a couple of places they had to come back and patch that I'm sure they're disappointed with, but I've never known this place when it wasn't rough -- but it's not now," Martin said during the lunch break. "I think they've done a nice job with it -- it's really smooth. So I'd give them a high grade."

Daytona spokesman Lenny Santiago explained what Martin actually saw were two areas that had been "ground" to bring them into the surface tolerances the track, its engineers and paving contractors had established.

"There were several areas, during the paving process, that we had to tear up and repave as we did our standard tolerance tests for smoothness," Santiago said. "There were a couple spots -- one in particular between Turns 3 and 4 that was ground a little more than the other area -- and because it became a different color than the surrounding asphalt, we coated it with a surface coating to match the colors.

"It visually does look different but it's all within the same tolerances for smoothness."

The six-month paving job, which well-known race track paving contractor Lane Construction began two days after Daytona's mid-summer Coke Zero 400, was finished five days ago. Lane stripped the previous asphalt, which was done in 1958 and paved over in 1978, to the bare earth and replaced it with four new layers of asphalt.

The project, which originally was planned for 2012, was executed this year when a sizeable pothole opened between Turns 1 and 2 of the 2.5-mile track during the Daytona 500. Delays totaling about two and a half hours ensued while attempts at patching the hole were made.

Between Speedweeks 2010 and the Coke Zero 400, the hole was covered with a sizeable reinforced concrete patch that held up during the July event.

"I wish that they didn't have to repave it at all, but there really wasn't a great alternative after what happened last year -- sort of one of those unfortunate set of circumstances," Martin said. "From a spectator's point, it will be a more exciting, more intense race than before. But from a competitor's point, your hands are going to be more tied than before."

"Everybody ran real close together, kinda like they do at Talladega," Wood said. "It was pretty intense. I mean, the cars were really close together, but it was good. The track's really smooth, really nice and they did a fantastic job on that."

Goodyear took advantage of the project's completion to work in the tire test -- one of at least five sessions that will be held in the next month including a Hoosier tire test Friday for the ARCA Racing Series, and open Grand-Am, ARCA and Cup tests next month, when as many as 40 Cup teams are expected to test.

When the track opened Wednesday morning, temperatures hovered around 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Cars got on the track at about 9:08 a.m. and were drafting by late morning. The temperature reached 50 degrees by noon but topped out at about 52 degrees, which was the reading at 5 p.m.

"The temperature didn't have any effect on anything," Wood said. "It was cold [Wednesday] but we've been down here in February and it's been cold, too. I've been down here and it's been just as cold both testing and racing. I don't think it was a major deal and nobody seemed to have any problems with it."

Martin's No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team used a car with a 2011 body configuration and also had the new-for-2011 engine package, which uses E-15 ethanol.

"This is the first time I've even thought of it," Martin said of the fuel change. "From my standpoint, I didn't notice any difference."

But the highlight change for Martin was that he was working for the first time on a Cup car with crew chief Lance McGrew and the HMS crew that tended Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car in 2010.

Martin relished working with McGrew, with whom he won the 2008 Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for JR Motorsports.

"I love the guys so far -- everything is really smooth," Martin said. "I had worked with Lance before and won with him before. That went really well. I kinda knew what to expect. I've known Lance and been a fan of his since then. It feels like business as usual."

Martin did admit to doing sort of a double take as his garage stall was next to Hendrick teammate Jeff Gordon's No. 24 squad. Gordon picked up crew chief Alan Gustafson and his crew, which Martin had worked with for his two previous seasons.

"Just kind of strange to look over and see 'my guys' working on the car next door, you know?" Martin said. "But I like these guys a lot -- everyone is enthused and energized and excited. It's a strong team and now it's just a matter of going out there and performing at the top of our game."

The test is scheduled to run from 9 a.m. until its conclusion Thursday, which may be as late as 5 p.m. The public is welcome to watch from a section of the Oldfield Grandstand, with access through the track's ticket office.

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Daytona repave job done with five days to spare