By Brant James, Crain News Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Jan. 11, 2013) — NASCAR's so-called "Generation 6" race car is getting a workout from some drivers who are taking a crack at what one called a video game-like vehicle.
Driver Denny Hamlin said the four-car draft session among his two Joe Gibbs Racing teammates and fellow Toyota driver Mark Martin of Michael Waltrip Racing at Daytona International Speedway on Jan. 10 revealed that the next-generation car "almost felt like kind of a video game in arcade mode, very easy to drive."
That doesn't mean it was simple to master, especially in the draft, however.
Mr. Hamlin said with the new cars, "it was definitely very hard to suck up to the front car. It was difficult, but with more cars, it will get better."
Messrs. Hamlin and Martin, along with Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch, were among the few to draft on the first day of testing before the season-opening Daytona 500, but Sprint Cup series director John Darby said the series was encouraging teams to engage on Jan. 11.
"The more the merrier," he said, adding a pack of a dozen or more would yield the most valuable data.
NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said he didn't think it possible to "draw any kind of conclusion to anything" from the brief JGR-Martin exercise. Both Messrs. Darby and Pemberton expected lap times—Mr. Hamlin led the second session with a lap of 45.986 around the 2.5-mile track—would naturally increase into SpeedWeeks.
Mr. Hamlin said the JGR cars performed "pretty similar." Mr. Kenseth was second-best in the afternoon session (46.063) with Mr. Busch (46.076) third, and there were no conclusions to be drawn about what teams or manufacturers might have an early advantage in the newest age of expanded competition possibilities between manufacturers.
"It's tough to say, really, until you get a group of at least 12 cars out there," Mr. Hamlin said. "That's when you'll really be able to figure out what your balance of your race car is out there.
"I know we had several different rear-end type settings in all three of our cars and they all drove pretty similar, so until we get these speeds—I think we got in the mid 46s or so—until you see them dip into those 44s, that will be the true test to see how these cars drive."
This report appeared in Auto Week magazine, a Detroit-based companion publication of Tire Business.