confident their cars are just about ready for the
Daytona 500. An additional day of testing was added due
to rain throughout the morning on Monday.Mark was never lower than seventh on the speed charts during any of the three days. His fastest lap of the three days occurred Wednesday with a speed of 185.399 mph. The team spent much of their time working on qualifying set ups and only used part of their practice for drafting. Mark and crew chief Jimmy Fennig decided they will save their new car for the Daytona 500, and run last year's superspeedway car for the Budweiser Shootout. Both cars tested well, but the new car seemed to be a bit faster.
"The test was about what I expected," Mark said. "We are going into Speedweeks without any surprises, and we don't expect any between now and then. We've really worked hard on all the parts we know we can tweak and exhausted most of the areas, but there is some magic left in this race car and hopefully we can find it. Drafting at Daytona is not a problem for us, so we spent most of our time trying to find some more qualifying speed. We're more interested in aerodynamic gains.
"We're in better shape than we were here last year. We'll have to see how that stacks up to the other manufacturers when they test at Daytona later this month. All in all, I think we've got some really good engines and some pretty nice cars. As far as Fords go, we're within striking distance."
The new car was built during the off-season and should be a very good car considering the history of last year's car. JR-59, which Mark drove at both Daytona and Talladega races last year, never finished lower than seventh place. In fact, Mark finished fifth in the Daytona 500 and fourth in the Pepsi 400. His runs at Talladega resulted in sixth and seventh place finishes.
As of now, that was the only restrictor-plate test the team has planned. They will be testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway at the end of the month, but no other tests are planned before the Daytona 500.
