“We felt like we were going to be better in the draft than we were by ourselves and we were right,” said Smith, who was 27th in the single-car-run morning session. “This 01 Chevy handled well and drove great today. The car needs to suck up a little better in the draft, but we're leaving here happy and look forward to coming back tomorrow and getting another day of drafting under our belts."

Smith and Menard rounded the 2.5-mile superspeedway in 47.968 and 47.976 seconds, respectively. Ryan Newman was fastest at 47.869 seconds.

“The car’s great in the draft,” said Menard, who ranked 25th fastest Tuesday morning. “We had an idea the car would be better in drafting practice. We’re down on horsepower from where we’ll be in February, so I wasn’t expecting much out of single-car runs but I was actually surprised at how well the car handled. I definitely feel like we’ll be where we need to be for the actual qualifying races and for the (Daytona) 500.”

The Sprint Cup teams began drafting during Tuesday's afternoon session and are expected to continue tomorrow, the final day of testing.

The 50th running of the Daytona 500 is slated for Feb. 17.