And Now, For Something a 'lil Different ...

This is a sight that Milwaukee race fans aren't treated to real often. Yup, that's Jeff Burton's Sprint Cup short track car, staged up just in front of Kevin Harvick's hauler. Milwaukee Mile has hosted a variety of Sprint Cup (Nextel, Winston, et. al.) test sessions through the years ... but, this is the first in a while that I can recall being open to the public. I work about two laps from the Milwaukee Mile ... and Dane's school is about 1.5 laps from the track ... so, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that when we hear about any type of race car buzzing around the place, we go and check it out.



I Have to admit, the Cup cars were pretty cool ... as are the IRL and former CART (champ, etc) ... but, in our book ... the neatest thing we've ever seen on the Milwaukee Mile were the USAC Sprinters from a couple years ago. By my watch ... the USAC sprint division gets beat only by the IRL or Indy style cars. Considering the USAC sprinters are sit up, open cockpit, open wheel, front engine, rear drive configuration ... it must have taken an enormous amount of courage to make the lap times they were pulling. 850 hp - 1200 lb. cars out there were absolutely hair raising.

Anyway, thought I'd share a few of the images that I got of the Cup guys today. Hope you enjoy them.

This photo of Kevin Harvick intrigues me ... look closely at the track beneath the right rear quarter panel ... there's a light shining down. My guess is that one of the crew workers who was responsible for that corner of the car (shocks, springs, etc.) probably forgot his flashlight in there. I'm guessing even a super tough mag light turns to dust if it winds up rolling down a track at 130 mph.

Terry Labonte, believe it or not, in an un-painted, unmarked Petty Enterprises car. He wasn't turning the fastest laps ... but, it's still cool to be able to say that I saw the former NASCAR champion turning laps in person.

Brian Vickers was going super quick in the #83 RedBull car. Look closely at the front splitter (spoiler) on either of the RedBull cars ... they are just glued to the track. You can tell there's some heavy braking going on with all that front nose dive.

The second team RedBull car, this one driven by Former open wheel ace, AJ Almendinger. Once again, check out that front splitter ... that's downforce, baby!

David Ragan finally hit the track in his Roush Fenway Ford Fusion when we were on our way out ... this shot was just hard to get. I haven't shot race cars in years, and I forgot how fast you have to pan to keep up. You can tell I'm on a pretty fast shutter speed on all of these shots as the fence is relatively clear. Even braking hard into the corner ... he's probably still rolling at close to 100 mph.



Though we never put a stop-watch on any of the drivers testing ... my ears told me that Casey Mears was likely fastest. Maybe I'm not recalling correctly ... but, it seems to me that at one of the Loudon, or maybe Phoenix races, the announcers were discussing how the Hendrick motors were turning a slightly easier gear, and running a higher RPM as a result. You could absolutely hear it in Mears car -- which was just screaming bloody murder -- as he approached the braking point on the straights -- compared to the rest of the testers.