Welcome opportunity to rejuvenate for crews, drivers

Sprint Cup driver Kevin Harvick will turn the reins of his Nationwide team to his crew while enjoying a rare weekend off. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- There is a formula used to determine when Easter Sunday falls each year, but many of us aren't smart enough to figure it out without looking at the calendar.

Whatever the algorithm may be, Easter weekend couldn't come soon enough for the NASCAR Sprint Cup competitors.

Factoring in preseason testing at Daytona in January, followed by preseason tests at California and Las Vegas before heading to Daytona Beach for SpeedWeeks, there's really no offseason in this sport.

And after the biggest race of the season -- the Daytona 500 -- the beastly nature of the 2008 Sprint Cup schedule sent the teams to California and Las Vegas in consecutive weeks before returning to the Southeast for races at Atlanta and Bristol.

During the weeks between, teams have run private tests at tracks not on the Sprint Cup schedule, in constant search for an edge on the competition.

So it's easy to understand how this weekend will give the drivers and crews a much-needed chance to rejuvenate before heading to Martinsville in two weeks followed by an April 6 trip to Texas and an April 12 night race in Phoenix.

But this weekend won't be devoid of racing as the Nationwide Series heads to Nashville for a Saturday race where some of the Cup drivers -- such as Carl Edwards -- can still get their racing fix.

One driver who won't be there is Kevin Harvick, who will turn the reins of his Nationwide team to his crew while enjoying a weekend off.

"They will keep us informed as to what going on," Harvick said. "We will be at home, relaxing and just kind of taking it all in.

"This year on the Cup side, we have had so much work to do as far as testing and other things, this off week is timed at a really good point. Before, the third week of the season, you weren't really ready for an off week. With all the stuff we have had going on this year, it comes at a perfect time."

Jeff Gordon gets to spend his first Easter Sunday as a father with his wife, Ingrid, who gave birth to daughter Ella last year.

"I'm just excited to have a week of just being with Ingrid and Ella as a family," Gordon said. "The thing is, I don't really get to be a dad as much as I really want to when I'm testing and racing. Even though they might travel with me and I get to see them, it's just for short periods of time. So I feel like I miss a lot of things.

"Those moments when I'm there solid, every single day, my favorite days are when I go, 'Ingrid, you go and just let us hang out.' Those are the coolest moments because I love seeing how [Ella] acts and reacts, especially now that she's doing so many new things. She's trying to walk, she's trying to talk, just all these things. I know they are going to take a long time before they actually happen, but just seeing the effort in there, it's just really, really cool. I don't want to miss any of it.

"So being able to spend 24 hours a day for a whole week, that's the ultimate. Now I might be ready to get back to the race track after that week."

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