by Lee Spencer

Cut and blistered tires were common complaints as the "Test in the West" kicked off at LVMS. On the bumpy, repaved asphalt — with banking in the turns increased from 12 to 20 degrees since the Nextel Cup drivers last raced at Vegas in March 2006 — finding the racing groove and dealing with the transition from the straightaways into the corners were problematic enough without tire problems compounding the issue.

Las Vegas testing on SPEED Monday, Jan. 29, 7 p.m. ET Tuesday, Jan. 30, 7 p.m. ET Wednesday, Jan. 31, 7 p.m. ET More on SPEEDTV.com

Despite the roughness of the track, however, the most frequent complaint heard at "New and improved" LVMS was "Fast — too fast!"

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said his "car wasn't driving that good around the bottom" but he picked up speed as he moved up the banking. Junior compared the redesigned track to Atlanta, adding that "the bumps going into (turn) one are really bad" and that the car was carrying a lot of load into the corners.

The afternoon session introduced a whole new set of problems, as many teams searched for balance and suffered an abnormally high tally of cut and blistered tires. Greg Biffle wadded up his car after he cut a tire early in testing. But when Kasey Kahne blew a right front tire and destroyed Chassis 128 — the best car of the stable that carried him to most of the No. 9's six wins last year — the garage took notice.

"That was my car," said a remorseful Kahne, who had posted the fastest lap of the day (29.239 seconds at 184.685 mph) in his favorite chassis. "That was the car, the good car. We don't have cars that are better, but we have cars that are that good."

Sign up now and create your free fantasy team and league. More NASCAR

Jeff Burton was far from satisfied after his day of testing. While he applauded track builders for canvassing the garage, Burton wonders how the suggestions are lost in translation.

"They screwed up Charlotte and didn't do this place any favors," Burton said. "What we do is inherently dangerous, and the racing doesn't have to be this fast. It's hard to get a feel for it. I don't see how too fast racing makes for good racing.

"The tires have to be as hard as bricks or they will explode. How many tires have we seen blow out today, three, four? We can expect tire problems when we built this type of a racetrack."

Blue Chip Driver

Not that this will surprise anyone — but Mark Martin topped the speed charts for Ginn Racing on Monday with a lap of 183.125mph (29.488-seconds). Ginn GM Jay Frye compared Martin to E.F. Hutton, "When he speaks, people listen — and they should." Frye added that, "When the team debriefs, the crew pays attention to what he has to say. He's doing exactly what we expected him to do."

The Lightning Round

Robby Gordon's transition from Chevrolet to Ford will be eased by the addition of Ed Guzzo, RGM's new team manager. Most recently, Guzzo was the shop foreman at Robert Yates Racing. Gordon says the biggest task is learning the difference between Chevrolet downforce and Ford downforce. Gordon added the Ford Racing engine "has not missed a beat" and allowed the team to continue tuning on the car...

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series director John Darby said teams will not have to re-certify Car of Tomorrow chassis that are wrecked at the track before racing the cars on the same weekend. Darby feels that repairs on sheet metal damage is far from manipulation of the chassis. If officials deem the car is not repairable, then it will have to return to the Technical Center for re-certification...

With a new nose job, David Stremme looked mighty sharp for Ganassi Racing Monday afternoon. We're not actually talking about rhinoplasty, but the new Dodge nose allowed the sophomore racer to post the best time in the Ganassi stable — a lap of 29.481 seconds (183.169 mph).

Lee Spencer is a senior NASCAR writer for FOXSports.com.