On September 26-27, AGR will have one car at the Daytona test. source: irl.racing-live.com - ORS / CAPSIS International The Indy Racing League has officially confirmed the first significant test of the offseason as four drivers and their teams will head to Daytona International Speedway to evaluate the track and the 2007 Honda engine specification. "We're hoping to go down there in a couple weeks, prove all of our theories correct and hopefully use Daytona International in the future to be a warm-weather testing venue for IndyCars," said John Lewis, the Indy Racing League's vice president for league development. "With Daytona, obviously banking is going to be a pretty big concern. We're going to look at what straightaway speeds are going to be, how the cars transition from the flat to the banking. We've done some computer models with regard to how the cars perform, how the tires perform. (Chassis builder) Dallara and Firestone and Honda are all comfortable with that. When we go down there we hope to run a bunch of laps." Robin Braig, president of Daytona International Speedway is more than happy to add an open wheel cars to his facility that already hosts premier NASCAR, AMA and Grand Am events. "This is just an unbelievably exciting time for us," said Braig. "I get to represent all of our employees and our race fans. We have a lot of veteran employees here that have seen a lot of different testing sessions, go-karts to sports cars, virtually anything that will run on this track. To have open-wheel and the Indy Racing League, it's important to our community. We just can't wait to have the unique sounds and the fuel smells that are going to be so much different from NASCAR going around our track. That noise is going to ring throughout our community and our track. It's just really exciting." To decide the participating teams, Lewis said he "took the top four teams in entrant points without duplicating." That means, Penske Racing, Ganassi Racing, Panther Racing and Andretti Green Racing will each run one car during the test.
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