Added banking a plus for drivers

Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

With finishes of second and third in the past two NASCAR Nextel Cup races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kyle Busch was not eager to see his hometown track undergo the drastic overhaul last summer that added significant banking to the track.

On the other hand, Busch's crew chief, Alan Gustafson, said the changes to the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval likely will prove to be beneficial to the No. 5 Kellogg's team, which will be one of 55 Nextel Cup teams testing here Monday and Tuesday.

In addition to getting a handle on how to set up their cars for the March 11 UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400, the teams will be able to apply what they learn while testing in Las Vegas to many of the eight other intermediate tracks - those between one and two miles in length - on the Nextel Cup circuit.

"Vegas is more in line with the meat of our schedule. That's more where you're going to win or lose a championship, at the intermediate-style racetracks," Gustafson said.

"Because of the banking now at Vegas, I think you may be able to apply a little bit more (to other 1.5-mile tracks) than you could before."

Once among the flattest tracks on the circuit with only 12 degrees of banking in the turns, the speedway underwent a face-lift last summer that increased the banking to 18-20 degrees from the bottom to the top of the track in an attempt to simulate more side-by-side racing. This style of banking is similar to what Homestead-Miami Speedway used when it reconfigured its 1.5-mile oval in 2003.

What: NASCAR preseason testing

When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday

Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Tickets: Admission to the grandstands is free.

More info: www.lvms.com

Busch, who was one of two Nextel Cup drivers to take part in a Goodyear tire test at the speedway in December, said he would have been happy had its officials not tinkered with the racing surface.

"I had a pretty good system on how to run around the old track and I thought it worked well for me and the car that we had was a pretty good piece," said Busch, a Las Vegas native and the younger brother of 2004 Nextel Cup champion Kurt Busch.

"But I think it's pretty neat what they did here. They still kept it pretty wide and it's got a great racing surface. It's wide enough where we'll probably be able to run some pretty good two- or three-wide over the years. We'll get to that point, but I wouldn't expect it this year. It's just a great layout."

Reed Sorenson, a second-year driver for Chip Ganassi's Nextel Cup team, said most of the drivers look forward to testing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway after spending three days earlier this month testing at Daytona International Speedway, where the cars must draft one another to achieve top speed.

"One of them is boring and one of them is not," Sorenson said when asked to compare the two tests. "Daytona, for a driver, is really not as much fun as any other place you go.

"Vegas, I heard they were hitting 205 (mph) on corner entry and, of course, that will be fun. It's a lot more fun to drive at tracks like that."

Kurt Busch said that the Las Vegas test will be the team's most important preseason test.

"I can't wait for Las Vegas next week," he said. "We'll get to see all the teams and how the stopwatches (compare) there."