Stremme tops day 1 at Lowe's

Stremme was the only driver to lap below the 29-second mark, setting an impressive time of 28.877 seconds at an average speed of 187 mph, driving his No. 41 Ganassi Dodge Charger during the evening session.

Most drivers complained about the low level of grip coming from the tyre combination selected by Goodyear, which is the same used in last year's May event after the track was last resurfaced.

"The tyres are still really hard and there's not a lot of grip. You've got to be really careful," said Stremme, who had already been second fastest in the afternoon session. "Other than that, things are going well. We are just taking our time and working through things."

Jeremy Mayfield was second for Toyota, ending the day nearly three tenths off Stremme, but just edging the Chevrolet Monte Carlos of DEI's Paul Menard and Ward Burton.

"We're learning some good things as we go along here in the test," Mayfield said. "We're just trying to gain on it as much as we can and get some good notes together so the guys can analyze them back at the shop and figure out where we can get faster when we come back here in a couple weeks."

Last year's Nextel All-Star Challenge winner Jimmie Johnson finished the day tenth with a lap of 29.419 seconds and an average speed of 183.555 mph, while Kasey Kahne, who had a clean sweep at Lowe's last year winning both points races, finished 14th.

"We hurt an engine and we're changing it," said Kahne, whose fastest lap was a 29.457 seconds. "Other than that, it's been a good test. The tyre's hard, but we've had it for a year now, so we're getting used to it."

Juan Pablo Montoya rounded up the top 15, setting exactly the same laptime as Kahne in his No. 42 Dodge, while making his first run at the 1.5-mile oval located just a few miles from his team's headquarters.

Points-leader Jeff Gordon ended the day in 24th and 0.658 seconds off from the day's benchmark driving his No. 24 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.  Lapping within the same tenth were Tony Stewart and his teammate Denny Hamlin, who had the only incident of the day.

Hamlin lost control of his No. 11 FedEx Chevrolet just minutes away from the end of the evening session, crashing backwards into the yellow SAFER barrier between turns 1 and 2. He was evaluated but later released from the track's Care Center.

Testing at Lowe's resumes today with and afternoon session followed by one in the evening with 52 teams in attendance.