Breaking News, or Saved Tires: Testing Banned for 2009

NASCAR has banned testing for all three National Series (Truck, Nationwide and Cup) at all NASCAR sanctioned tracks next season. This decision has been made with an eye on trying to help teams save several million dollars in their 2009 budgets.

Here's where you need to shake your head: This moratorium also includes "preseason" Daytona 500 testing. I'm betting networks are scrambling to figure out time filler shows for the slots they reserved to cover the Daytona testing.

What this means is that no tests will be allowed to be conducted by any team where a Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series or Truck Series event is held.

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Brilliant!

On one side of the coin, I say good job. You've saved the little team oodles of funds.

On the other side of the coin, I say, WTH are you thinking? You know testing is going to happen and you can't stop it. It's just going to happen at non-sanctioned NASCAR tracks.

You've just made it harder for the smaller teams or new drivers to get that valuable on-track experience needed while they test. Heck, Penske was going to build his own track a few years back. I'm guessing he might be rummaging through the drawers for those blue prints right after the announcement at Homestead this morning.

If you had to cap the practice sessions, I'd say limit the tests to the number of tests the smallest team conducts. In this fashion, if teams want to test, the racing community comes together and starts helping each other so they can get their tests and everyone makes out OK.

I guess this is going to mean more NASCAR Racing 2003 simulation testing for the young guns! It worked for Carl, Denny, Dale Jr and Truex, just to name a few. They've used the software to get familiar with different aspects of tracks they've either never been to or wanted to test new ideas on. Denny's first two wins at Pocono were credited by him to the simulation. Jr and Truex both were recanting how their on-track tactics were just like a mod in the game they used, that got them to the front.

There's no reason it can't work for the newbies. In fact, it's going to have to now.

Let's see if this detracts from ABC's blunder last weekend? (No, I'm not bitter and bringing it up every chance I get. Not me.)

Oh, by the way: This new restriction will put a premium on tire testing. Tire testing has not been banned... yet. Again, probably another advantage for the bigger, experienced teams.