When NASCAR made the announcement last November in Homestead there would be a complete ban on testing, few knew what implications would come. Judging by the racing seen in Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout, the lack of testing made for a group of hungry drivers eager to put on a great show.

For seventy-five laps the stars of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series shook off the winter dust and beat and banged in one of the greatest, most action-packed Budweiser Shootouts in recent memory. In the end it was Richard Childress Racing's Kevin Harvick who made the move when it mattered most, taking the win.

After celebrating in Gatorade Victory Lane, Harvick admitted the lack of testing made for excellent racing.

"I told them on the way over here, they ought to cancel testing every year if you want to see a race like that," Harvick told the media. "That was a lot of built-up racecar drivers that were really looking for something to hang out on the edge. I think everybody got a good show tonight."

In years past, teams would have about a month before the end of the season in Homestead and the beginning of testing for the next season. Just enough time off to spend the holidays with family and friends and then it was back to work preparing for the long season ahead.

Teams would head to Daytona for weeks of preseason testing in January, head out to Las Vegas for another test, all while preparing for the Daytona 500 and the start of the season. For those teams in the Budweiser Shootout the work needed to prepare another car for the season-opening exhibition was just an added burden.

"It was a glorified test session, to be honest with you," Harvick went on to say. "Every other time we've been in the Shootout coming here, it's like you got to get another car ready. It's usually your third best car. You save the two for the 500. It's a lot of work for the guys getting a third car ready, testing it, doing all the things you do with it. Then you got to go to Vegas, you got to go to Daytona, you have to do all the testing over the winter. I hope we cancel testing every winter. I hate testing."

For Harvick, the time off not only saved teams work, but also allowed drivers and crew members to reevaluate things and get back to what matters most.

"I think the enthusiasm, though, if you look they crew guys, they're not beat up from having to run across the country all winter," last nights winner added. "The drivers are excited to come down here. Everybody is excited to be at the racetrack, smell the fumes of the cars, drive laps. There's just that added enthusiasm.

"It's like everybody got a wake-up call and said, 'Hey, we need to get our stuff together.' We have never not been able to go to the racetrack and not test. Now you get to come to the racetrack and it's like taking your favorite toy away, it's almost like you got grounded for a few months, and now you get to come out and have fun with it again."

The overall consensus from the garage is that the ban on testing was a welcomed rule. Teams were able to concentrate more on getting work done at the shop, crew members and drivers did not have to travel across the country from test to test and for the first time in a long time they were able to enjoy an actual break in the action before getting at it for another thirty-six weeks.

Whether the ban on testing was why the racing was so intense was not as agreed upon, however. Others throughout the garage felt the intense racing was more a product of the Shootout than the ban on testing. Sure, it was nice to take the extra time off during the winter, but unlike Havick's take on it, some felt it was business as usual during the preseason exhibition

"I don't know if what we saw last night was a result of no testing," Casey Mears told HardcoreRaceFans.com, "I think it was just a result 
of the Shootout. There was a lot of new guys in the race as well. Maybe if they had gotten some testing they would have had a little more experience, but even guys with more experience were driving pretty wild. I think it's more a combination of this car, this tire and this track getting a little more bumpy, it's difficult to get these cars around here right without making any mistakes and hopefully the 500 will be more calm, I'm sure it will be. Everybody last night knows that if you don't win it doesn't mean anything and if you don't bring the car home it doesn't matter. When you have that mindset and a bunch of guys out there that want to win it creates a lot of interesting racing."

Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Steve Letarte agreed with Mears' sentiment. "I think that's just the Shootout. When you take points away, unleash a bunch of gown men and race cars on a place like this under the lights and put a lot of money on the line, that's what you're going to get," Letarte explained. "These cars bunch a real big whole, they're great for speedway racing, they put on a great show for the fans and I think they reminded me of all the Shootouts I have ever been a part of."

Whether the ban on testing was a direct result of the racing seen during Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout is really dependent on which person you ask. While the race winner thought it was a product of pent up drivers, others felt it was simply because there was pride, bragging rights and big money on the line. Regardless, the drivers that competed in the Shootout put on an amazing show for all the Hardcore Race Fans watching.