NASCAR has eliminated the rookie practice portion of its weekend schedule for Nationwide and Craftsman Truck Series teams. For the last two years, the Nationwide and truck rookies would get an extra practice (typically a half-hour session). They would get a set of tires specifically for that test session. Now, practice sessions have been increased by about 30 minutes for the entire field. But rookies get an extra set of tires for the race weekend. That extra set can only be used in practice. Rookie practice was implemented in 2006 when NASCAR put its new testing policy into effect. That policy forbids testing at tracks where the series competes in except for the official NASCAR tests. Before then, teams were limited in the number of tests but could test at whatever track they wanted, so teams with rookies often would take them to test where there was a steep learning curve. Both the Nationwide and the truck teams had at least three hours of practice scheduled for California this weekend.(SceneDaily.com)(2-22-2008)
