Edwards once again fastest in final practice

Edwards led three of the four practices on the newly repaved 1.5-mile track — with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate topping the second session.

Truex was second quick with a speed of 186.528 mph, followed by Kyle Larson (186.387 mph), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (186.091 mph) and defending Quaker State 400 winner Kyle Busch (185.989 mph).

Earnhardt, who has yet to win his first race this season, feels tire management will come into play on Saturday.

“The tire is probably a pretty hard tire,” Earnhardt said. “Goodyear usually brings a real durable tire to the repaves, so what you can do in the race is really not take tires at all or take two tires.  You probably won’t change left’s every time you come down pit road. That is a great way to get track position if everybody else isn’t doing that same thing. You can get off sequence and not pit at all.  

“It just depends. It’s a one groove track, so passing is going to be really difficult.”

Kevin Harvick was sixth quick with a lap of 185.931 mph, Austin Dillon (185.848 mph), AJ Allmendinger (185.790 mph), Brad Keselowski (185.765 mph) and Ryan Blaney (185.752 mph) rounded out the top 10 in single lap runs.

Larson led the Best 10 Consecutive Lap Average runs with a speed of 183.629 mph followed by Truex (183.501 mph), Kyle Busch (183.391 mph), Harvick (183.267 mph), Jimmie Johnson (182.991 mph) and rookie Chris Buescher (182.802 mph).

After three laps, Denny Hamlin tagged the wall and received right-side damage. Hamlin returned to the track 15 minutes later. His best lap was 185.733 mph —11th on the speed chart.

“Everything looks good from up here,” spotter Chris Lambert told Hamlin once he completed Lap 4.
The only other incident involved Kurt Busch, who slid into Turn 3 and slapped the wall 15 minutes before the end of final practice. Busch, who was slotted to start third after time trials were cancelled, will now roll off from the rear of the field. Busch ended up 15th on the speed chart (185.573 mph).