The #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge rolled off the truck this morning at the Nashville Superspeedway to begin testing with driver Bobby Labonte behind the wheel. Kyle Petty is also in town observing as the crew and crew chief, Paul Andrews, tackle the right set-up on the 1.33-mile concrete D-shaped oval. “We decided to come to Nashville to work on some general set-ups for the car to use in the near future. I guess you could say we’re doing some R & D, but it mainly consists of finding new ways to set the car up. I believe this is Bobby’s first test run on this particular track in a Petty car so we should have some interesting results by this afternoon,” said Andrews. When asked about his thoughts on the “Car of Tomorrow” Andrews said, “It’s definitely going to take some time to adjust for all of us. The main reason for the COT is driver safety, but also to make the competition closer and more even across the board. The wing on the back end of the car is supposed to help the driver, especially in traffic where the air can get taken off the back, to have more control and not have to deal with the issue of being loose. I guess the jury is still out on the whole deal and will be for awhile, but we do what NASCAR tells us to do. The primary reason for the COT is to make our drivers safer, so that’s always a positive thing and we’ll all have to adapt.”(Nashville Superspeedway PR)(9-20-2006)
