Phoenix to host Goodyear tire test

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Staff Report

No. 11 and No. 16 team crew chiefs discuss their testing plans

Phoenix International Raceway will be a busy place over the next month and a half.

In addition to hosting the Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 (Nov. 9, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN), the final race of the Eliminator Round in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup where four drivers will be eliminated before the season wraps up in Homestead, the track will also host a Goodyear tire test.

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Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s "The Morning Drive," Darian Grubb, crew chief for Denny Hamlin‘s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team, disclosed that there will be a test and discussed the positives and negatives of testing during the season.

"We found out yesterday that we’re actually going to have an extra day at Phoenix turned into a 2015 tire test after we do our team test out there. So that’s going to be interesting right before we go to Talladega and the stressful week, a lot of our guys are going to have to stay out there and do a third day of testing just for Goodyear and NASCAR. So it’s exciting because it gives you a chance to get ahead on next year’s stuff, but it’s also tough to be able to concentrate on this year and start working on next year as well."

Hamlin’s team is planning on testing at Phoenix "the week after next" and will also be testing at Homestead "two weeks after that," Grubb said. Hamlin is still in the championship hunt as the Chase heads into the Contender Round at Kansas Speedway for the Hollywood Casino 400 (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET, ESPN)

Grubb was also asked about the 2015 rules package that was announced last week. Among the changes announced are a reduction in horsepower and a ban of team-facilitated testing for next season.

"I really think it’s a good direction. I wish we had gone a little farther with the downforce reduction, but it is what it is and we’re going to go out there and we’re going to race hard. From what we saw at Michigan and how racy the cars were and how the drivers were physically having to drive the car, I think the direction is for sure going to be the right thing. I think racing will become a lot closer, and the driver is going to have more of a chance to mess up and jump the cars loose and guys diving inside. Hopefully they’re going to have more talks in the future and go even further with the downforce reduction and give Goodyear some freedom to be able to give us more grip in the tires and more falloff and make pit strategy and things like that a lot more of a game to play. Any time you open up the rulebook for crew chiefs to have a little more chance to work and a little bit more freedom to make your car better than the other guy, we all thrive on that because we all want to find that advantage. The more that goes, the happier we’re going to be and hopefully the racing gets even better because of it."

For a team eliminated from the Chase, working toward 2015 is at the forefront of their mind. Matt Puccia, Greg Biffle‘s crew chief, discussed with "The Morning Drive" the tests the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing team has lined up.

"(We’ve) got a lot of stuff to do for 2015 in the next month and a half, two months that really we’re working hard on now," Puccia said. "We’ve got a Homestead team test that we’re going to use this year. Maybe we’ll work on some stuff there. There’s a Goodyear test that we’re going to go to and work on the rules package this year. I think we’ve got Charlotte they’re talking about this year and California maybe. So really going to start strapping down here and start working on ’15 here."

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Posted on October 2, 2014 by Zack Albert

K&N Pro Series East champ, 17, eyes move up

RELATED: More coverage from Home Tracks | Learn more about Ben Rhodes

For most high school students, the turn from spring into summer can come with a sharp decline in productivity, merely clicking off the days before vacation time. Ben Rhodes, however, was just getting warmed up.

The 17-year-old product of Louisville, Kentucky, made the most of the seasonal transition with four consecutive wins in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. The string helped Rhodes secure the series championship with one race remaining, a run he capped off with a 15th-place finish last weekend at Dover International Speedway.

Rhodes’ season-ending tally of five wins and six pole positions is impressive enough; only Dylan Kwasniewski (six wins in 2013) and Joey Logano (five wins in 2007) have posted similar numbers. The streak of four victories in a row, though, only raised the degree of difficulty.

"It felt really good; I probably should have enjoyed it more while it was happening because you don’t realize what you have until its gone," said Rhodes, a member of the current NASCAR Next class of up-and-coming drivers."… Once it’s gone, you realize how sweet it really was. We’re working for it again. We’ve been trying this whole time to get some wins and create another streak, but we’ve just got to be more on top of our game with some of these races."

Rhodes started off strong, qualifying on the front row in each of the first four races. He was on the pole position at Bristol Motor Speedway in March for one of the series’ signature events, and while missing out on his first career victory with a third-place finish left a sour taste, he realized then that his Turner Scott Motorsports team had the potential for something special.

"I’d say that was where it started. We carried that one for a long time, carried it throughout the year," Rhodes said. "The competition has really gotten tougher — they’re very good at what they do. They’re all very talented. It’s hard to race against these guys week in, week out. We all know each other pretty well, so we can kind of predict what we’re going to do on the race track, so that’s fun. It’s been an interesting challenge for me this year, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I’d say we clicked around Bristol and from there, it’s gotten only better."

After Bristol, the wins came in bunches. Rhodes dominated at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina the following week for his first victory in the series, a triumph that vaulted him to a lead in the standings that he would never relinquish. After a runner-up effort at Richmond in April, the stunning streak of wins at Iowa Speedway, Bowman Gray Stadium, Five Flags Speedway and Langley Speedway gave Rhodes a commanding advantage. Rhodes held serve the rest of the way with three more top-fives, finishing with a 60-point edge in the K&N East standings over Canadian standout Cameron Hayley.

All the while, he faced the rigors of school work, forcing a delicate balancing act with the series’ 16-race schedule — a Victory Lane celebration one day, pre-calculus problems and research papers the next. Meeting goals on both fronts wasn’t easy, but Rhodes had a game face for each one.

"It’s hard, really hard. … It’s always hard just because it’s hard to switch that focus," Rhodes said. "Once you get to the race track, I go into race mode and everything else is blocked out so it’s hard to just switch your focuses like that. The school works with me very well, but it’s still very hard for me to just switch the focus. I’m ready to be out, ready to focus on my racing career."

Rhodes has already ventured into what may be his next steps, notching two top-10 finishes in his three appearances in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series this season. While nothing is set in stone for 2015, Rhodes pulled no punches about where he’d like to be next year.

"I would love to be running one of the national series, either the Camping World Truck Series or the XFINITY Series, but either way, I think the XFINITY Series will be much better and easier for me to transition into with the cars," Rhodes said. "The trucks from what I understand so far, they’re a little bit different for the aero package and it’s harder to get used to for me. I’ve gotten used to the radial tires now, so that was a really big step. But no plans right now. We’re still working on some sponsorship opportunities and talking to teams. We’ll see what we get lined up and hopefully here in the next couple months we’ll have something."

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