Track Testing Guide - First Time On The Track

The power steering isn't working. The crew scrambles under the car to bleed the system and discovers that apparently trapped air gave them a false reading on the fluid level. It is an easy cure.

He rolls back onto the track, and after three laps he's back in the pits.

"I know this track pretty well and I know how the car should feel," Jefferson says. "It doesn't take a bunch of laps to figure out if it is right or not."

Each time the car comes in, the team goes through its well-oiled routine. Carruthers checks tire temps on all four corners. Another crewmember checks air pressure buildup, and a third one checks stagger. Everything is written down.

Carruthers and Jefferson look at the tire temp readings and decide to make a change in the right-front camber to give that corner a more solid footprint.

"We began with what's in our notebook from last time we were here," says Carruthers. It was really a highly educated guess.

Jefferson says a pole-qualifying lap on fresh rubber is in the high 17-second range, but he's not looking to run qualifying speeds. In fact, they are testing on used, leftover tires from 2003.

The decision was made, in part, to find out how the car will handle in race trim.

"You don't win races on new tires," he says. "By the end of the race, everyone is on used rubber, and that's when the car has to be at its best."

The other part of the equation is money.

"I've got a new set of tires in the trailer," he says. "But they are $600. I know it looks like we are a pretty high-dollar operation, but we are scrambling for every dollar we get."

The operation runs on a shoestring, with mostly volunteer help and sponsorship by a company that owns both the tractor-trailer and Jefferson's new race car.

Jefferson is driving full time this year, hoping to be noticed by an owner who might try him in a Craftsman Truck or Busch car, but knowing that with each passing year, his chances are diminished.

At 32 years of age, the window of opportunity is closing fast. All he can do is work to showcase his talent and hope someone notices. That's the reason they test and test and test.

"We aren't trying anything new here," he says of the car's first laps. "It's too early to be messing with a lot of shock settings and paying too much attention to the stopwatch."

"You've got to have a plan," says Carruthers. "What we want to learn today is how close this car is to the one we had last year and how to get it to where Jeff is comfortable in it. He's one of the best drivers I've worked with. He not only knows what the car is doing on the track, he also has a pretty solid idea of what's causing it. He can feel the difference between a shock and aero-push. If we can give him something that's going to race good, that's a big part of his success."

The routine is steady: Make a change, send Jefferson out for three or four laps, and come in for another change. One crewmember is recording lap times, but no one else is even looking at the timing sheet.

"I can feel where I am," Jefferson says. "We've got the fastest car here. I'm happy with it."

At that point, other teams would put the car back in the trailer and break out the Bud, but Carruthers calls for the scales and new springs.