Rick Crawford and the #14-Circle Bar race team will participate in a Ford test at the Talladega Superspeedway next Tuesday and Wednesday. They will be part of 3 or 4 Ford, NASCAR Craftsman Truck teams that will be experimenting with different aerodynamic packages. The test has been scheduled to give some of the Ford teams and drivers and idea of what to expect, when and if, a race at such a speedway is added to the 2000 NCTS schedule. Several Ford SVO officials will be on hand to conduct the test. Crawford was selected because of his Cleveland, Georgia shop’s proximity to the speedway and the fact that they are not behind in repairing damaged trucks like other Ford teams. This will be the first trip for the NASCAR Craftsman Trucks to the 2.55-mile superspeedway(Jayski Note: it’s 2.66 miles). Kent Harrison, NASCAR Supertruck Program Manager for Ford SVO, stated, ?????You won’t see these trucks flirting with 200 (mph), but we will be running around the 180 (mph) range to conduct the test.????(SpeedZone Marketing)(8-26-1999) – UPDATE: Truck Series driver Rick Crawford made a little history Tuesday. He tested his Ford F-150 Tuesday on the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway, the first time a NASCAR Truck has been on that track. Andy Hillenburg also tested in the Ford which Mike Wallace regularly drives in the Truck Series. Several Dodge teams will arrive Thursday for an additional test. The Ford teams were not shooting for speed, but basically to improve aerodynamics. They did, however, clock laps in the 183 mph range, which is faster than Jay Sauter’s pole-winning speed at Texas earlier this year. Sauter turned a lap of 179.718 mph around the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway in June. The Truck Series has never raced on an oval larger than two miles in length, but Talladega Superspeedway president Grant Lynch expressed the possibility that they may sometime in the future(SpeedNet)(9-1-1999)
