AUSTIN, Texas — Kyle Busch, Tyler Reddick and Austin Cindric got the NASCAR Cup Series preseason underway Monday with a two-day Goodyear Tire test at Circuit of The Americas.
The opening day of the Goodyear Tire test was highlighted by the fresh looks of Busch and Reddick, who open the season with new teams, car numbers and engine manufacturers.
Busch was behind the wheel of the No. 8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing after spending 15 seasons with Joe Gibbs Racing driving the No. 18 Toyota. Ironically, it was the No. 8 RCR entry that Reddick departed after three seasons to settle in the No. 45 Toyota Camry TRD with 23XI Racing.
Testing Notes
The test gave Reddick his first opportunity to work at the track with the No. 45 team.
“Here at COTA, it’s always a blast. It’s one of the most fun racetracks from a driver’s perspective just racing the surface itself,” Reddick said. “It’s a really challenging racetrack but certainly for me this team waited a long time to get to the track. Thankfully this tire test was on the schedule for us, and we were able to come out here thanks to Goodyear and take our first laps in a Toyota Camry TRD.
“For a first day, it went really well. We learned a good bit about how the differences of the car and excited to see how tomorrow goes and hopefully we can learn some more.”
Cindric found the test to be crucial, with the track itself making the drivers race differently than they would at other road courses.
“Our cars its quite challenging; there is tire wear, the layout is a bit challenging, but you actually don’t run the conventional lines,” Cindric said. “You use a lot of the runoff. From a bird’s eye view, you kind of have to know the line to take, it’s not very intuitive on where to go. … You can be distracted visually by different lines or paint because you go up the hill and the esses and it’s just massive expanse of asphalt, but you have to do something with it.
“You have to keep inside the track and inside the curbs and not upset the car. So there’s quite a lot of areas on the racetrack that are that way which I feel like for me makes it fairly unique. In my opinion, fairly European-style circuit compared to some of the other road courses we have state side. I don’t think we get that in too many tracks we go to.”
More testing will continue at the 3.41-mile road course on Tuesday.