Double NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson followed on from a successful Grand-Am test on Daytona's road course by posting the fastest time of the opening day of Sprint Cup Series testing on the oval in his more familiar #48 Lowe's Chevrolet.
The 2006 Daytona 500 race winner clocked a lap at 184.782mph in the morning session of day one of the traditional pre-season session, comfortably bettering Hendrick Motorsports team-mate Casey Mears - timed at 184.475mph - and the man Mears replaces in the #5 Kellogg's Chevy, Kyle Busch, who started work with Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota in third spot, at 184.064mph.
The Daytona 500 will officially mark the first event on the hallowed circuit for NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow, but Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus said that they were delighted with the results following Monday's morning session.
First time being here on such a rough surface, there's a lot of speed in making the car drive right, Johnson said during the lunch-break, It's been fun. I didn't expect today to be this much fun and really be this challenging as a driver and challenging as a team in finding the right set-up and balance of the car.
Behind Mears and Busch, second year
Red Bull Toyota driver AJ Allmendinger posted the fourth best lap across the day's two sessions, with rookie Jacques Villeneuve rounding out the top five on his first day as a Cup Series 'regular' with Bill Davis Racing. The Canadian was behind the wheel of the same #27 Camry that he qualified sixth at Talladega's CoT superspeedway debut last October.
"It's fun, first time, he said of his first visit to
Daytona, I guess it's the one track that's known in Europe. It is one of the special tracks so, first time here, it's nice. I live in Montreal now and we've been in snow storms for a while, so it's nice to be on the beach a bit.
![Jimmie Johnson - Lowe's Chevrolet [pic credit: image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/279398.jpg)
