NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams tested the ‘new’ spoiler at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation of this weekend’s race.

photo credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

The spoiler will officially make its comeback in Sunday’s Goody’s Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

“I haven’t formed a large opinion yet on the spoiler,” reigning series champ Jimmie Johnson said. “Largely because the time we spent on track, we’ve just been adjusting to a new tire and for us, a new setup for this racetrack. I think the good thing is that there’s nothing large or big jumping out at us saying the spoiler is a lot different. We’ve just been kind of working on our race car and working as if this was just a normal test and there was no change at the back of the car with a wing versus a spoiler.”

Last week, NASCAR allowed teams to test the spoiler at Talladega Superspeedway. Both test sessions are an exception to NASCAR’s current testing policy.

“I really like the spoiler,” Carl Edwards said. “I think it looks great. I think it’s a great move. The fans are gonna like it and it doesn’t seem to make the car feel much different.”

“I feel like this is a new opportunity to maybe gain some ground, where before some other teams had an advantage on you,” David Reutimann said. “Now, you got something that’s completely new and it’s kind of a clean sheet of paper for almost everybody.  It’s just going to see who can adapt the quickest.”

The wing replaced the spoiler on NASCAR’s ‘Car of Tomorrow’. The new car made its debut at Bristol Motor Speedway for the spring race in 2007, 93 races ago.

“Aesthetically, it makes the cars look better,” said Kurt Busch. “There is some fine-tuning available with the rear-deck fin and that’s pretty cool. We’ll have a couple of races with the spoiler under our belts before we get to Texas and that will be our first big test with it.”

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