Racing at Lowe's Motor Speedway is NASCAR's ultimate home game. Familiar surroundings, sleeping in your own bed, spending time with the family -- and racing on a track they know as well or better than any other on the circuit.

Throw in a recent tire test and you've got a lot of information to help you run well.

Just ask Tommy Baldwin, crew chief for Dave Blaney's No. 22 Toyota.

“

At the end of the day, it still has four tires that have to see the racetrack and that's what you have to concentrate on, getting those tires to work equally to go around the track.

”

-- TOMMY BALDWIN

"I think this is the fourth time we've been on it with the new car and we've had four or five tests on it since it's been repaved," Baldwin said. "We did a lot of testing, for two days [in a row], and then we put our old baseline setup on it and it's just as good as the new setup."

The new car has thrown crew chiefs under the bus at a lot of places this season, but Charlotte isn't one of them. Despite the new car's tendency to wear out the right side tires because of the additional loading it has now, it's the same old track, according to Baldwin.

"There's not much changed at Charlotte," he said. "When the sun goes down it gets more grip and that makes it easier for the drivers to drive the car. Nothing really has changed at Charlotte."

Grip, the great constant for all crew chiefs, is in short supply at most tracks, but Charlotte doesn't seem to be as bad as other places. Still, Baldwin said he's chasing it just like his compatriots on the 42 other pit boxes.

"If we could find a way to bottle it up and sell it at Home Depot or Lowe's, we'd be all right," he joked. "That's the major factor with these cars, getting grip, wherever we go, except for maybe Talladega. It's definitely a handful to work on, these cars, but Charlotte is still Charlotte, and when the sun goes down it always seems to be real nice."

Baldwin, like Greg Zipadelli and a few other crew chiefs, came out of the NASCAR Modified ranks in the Northeast. There, he was able to use a pretty wide playbook for adjustments, and those adjustments were known qualities: if you put wedge in, it's going to react like this; if you take it out, it's going to do that.

Of course, Modifieds have a lot less weight than Sprint Cup cars, are able to run offset chassis and are able to use more of the tire's contact patch, so there's an additional degree of difficulty at this level.

In other words, adjustments are more of an unknown than they are with the Modifieds.

"It's been real aggravating," Baldwin said. "These cars are so difficult. The horsepower to the weight to the downforce ratios are so odd for lining up to make a racecar go around the track. There are so many things that you have to work on to try to get the car right.

"At the end of the day, it still has four tires that have to see the racetrack and that's what you have to concentrate on, getting those tires to work equally to go around the track. It's difficult."

With some uncertainty as to what is going to happen when he makes an adjustment, Baldwin has started making adjustments a regular part of the practice session each weekend.

"Lately, we've started making those adjustments part of our practice," he said. "We kind of have an idea what direction the car will go in once we make that adjustment in the race. You don't know what you're fighting, because most of the time the car is doing two things in the corner -- pushing and loose -- so it's hard to figure out."

Component-wise, Baldwin said that Lowe's isn't particularly tough on any one set of components. "It's a long race, and if you stay out of trouble you're usually all right."

Lowe's has been a good track for the team, which makes it easier for Baldwin and Blaney to finish well.

"That's a good track for us, and our baseline setup, we feel, is a top-15 setup," Baldwin said. "We based that off last week, at the end of the night, against a setup that we worked on for two nights, so we'll probably stick to our baseline."

Tires have been problematic for most teams at Lowe's in recent races, but Baldwin said that this week's model is pretty good.

"These are probably a little too hard for this track, but they're safe, and that's what NASCAR and Goodyear are looking for," he said. "Tire wear has been pretty good there, so it'll be a left-side, right-side, no-tire kind of race."

At least the trip home will be much shorter on Saturday night.