It has only been 32 days.

That's the period of time between Tony Stewart's coronation as Winston Cup champion and what NASCAR now calls "Preseason Thunder." By all accounts that's not much of an off-season.

When engines fired at Daytona Tuesday morning the countdown to Speed Weeks 2003 officially began. Now with less than a month to the Budweiser Shootout teams have already started feeling the crunch of preparing for the season's biggest event.

But no team is wondering were the days have gone more than Penske Motorsports and Gibbs Racing. The two high profile organizations have switched manufacturers for 2003. Penske moves to Dodge after nine seasons with Ford, while after six seasons with Pontiac -- during which the team has won two of the last three championships -- Gibbs moves to Chevrolet.

"It's just an awful lot of work for the guys at the shop, building 36 new cars this year," said Gibbs' No. 20 car crew chief Greg Zipadelli. "We're probably not as far along as we'd like to be, but our goals were to build good cars that we know we can race and be competitive, rather than just to go ahead and build 10 or 12 cars for each team and have cars built. I'm comfortable with the cars we have built. The numbers of them aren't there, but that will come in the next moth or so. It's just a lot of work, a lot of time. Hours is all it is. It's just a lot of effort."

	Wallace finished seventh in points while driving a Ford last season.

The Penske team is also a little behind heading into this week's Daytona test.

"This is our first trip, and these particular cars haven't been to the wind tunnel yet," said Penske driver Rusty Wallace. "We got things done kind of late as you can imagine. I still think we're in real good shape. We've got tunnel dates scheduled when we leave here. We'll put all this information in one big basket and see where we're at when we get to the wind tunnel."

Although there are aerodynamic question marks, Wallace added that he was very pleased with the way the motor program is progressing.

"The biggest conversion was in the engine shop. As long as they got the pieces and parts they needed pretty fast, they were in good shape," said Wallace. "They got everything they needed quick. They were surprised to see how quick they got the pieces they needed. Dodge really helped us get the blocks, cylinder heads and all the stuff we needed to make this big transition. It's pretty smooth over here right now. Now it's just a quest for horsepower, try to get more and more and more."

Penske and Gibbs aren't the only teams making a manufacturer change this season. PPI Motorsports will transition from Ford to Pontiac and Morgan McClure moves from Chevrolet to Pontiac.

However, unlike PPI and Morgan McClure, Penske and Gibbs had already ranked high on their manufacturers' food chain and didn't stand to gain status or additional manufacturer support with the switch. Because of this, it appears their motivation for change is fueled predominantly by gaining a competitive edge. But in order to harness the full potential of their new make they must test, which is what both teams have done since the conclusion of the 2002 season.

In November, Gibbs, with Stewart and teammate Bobby Labonte, participated in GM manufacturer test at Homestead Miami Speedway only a day after the season finale. Meanwhile, Penske, with Wallace and Ryan Newman, have split time over the last two months at Louisville, College Station (Texas) and Talladega, Ala.. None of these sessions are considered official because they either took place at a non-Winston Cup track or were held during the 2002 calendar year -- an important distinction because official testing dates are now limited to five as opposed to seven a year ago.

Labonte posted the fastest time of the several Chevrolet teams participating in the Homestead test -- an encouraging sign following a season where he struggled, recording just seven top-10 finishes and ending up 16th in the standings.

	“	(The engine shop) got everything they needed quick. ... Dodge really helped us get the blocks, cylinder heads and all the stuff we needed to make this big transition. It's pretty smooth over here right now. Now it's just a quest for horsepower, try to get more and more and more. ”
		— Rusty Wallace

"It was definitely a good confidence booster," said Labonte, who will also have to adjust to new crew chief Michael "Fatback" McSwain this season. "I was excited, obviously, after the test was over. I was ready to get down here and skip the tests and just go racing. Usually, you want a few days off, but I was ready to go racing then. It was definitely a confidence booster, so when we got here this morning I was ready to go. I just feel really good about starting off, hopefully on the right foot."

Labonte continued to look strong at Daytona. He posted a lap of 183.539, the fastest during Thursday's session. But the 2½-mile restrictor plate track may not be the best barometer for gauging the Penske and Gibbs transition.

"It's hard to say here at Daytona because you hold it wide open," said Stewart. "A place like Charlotte or something like that is going to give me a lot better read on what I've got aero wise. Here, you hold it wide open.

"You don't have to lift, so you don't really notice the handling characteristics versus last year. It's a good question, but I honestly can't provide a good answer for it until we get to Rockingham, until we get to Atlanta, Vegas and get further into the season where we can get to tracks where you have to lift, where you have to run behind cars."