Practice report

NASCAR Cup Talladega

Ty Dillon leads the first Talladega Cup practice at 203mph

Ty Dillon led the way in Friday’s first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

Jim Utter

Edited: Apr 27, 2018, 5:46 PM

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Ty Dillon, Germain Racing, Chevrolet Camaro GEICO

Dillon went out late in the session with a group of drivers to draft and posted an average lap speed of 202.959 mph to top the speed chart.

He was followed by Daniel Suarez and Kyle Busch, both of whom posted the same lap speed (202.680 mph). Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman completed the top-five.

“Obviously we got some speed there. We’re just working on some small stuff,” Dillon said when his Germain Racing team had completed its work on the track. “It’s a good start to the weekend. My guys have done a lot of great work.”

Completing the Top 10 were Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, Jimmie Johnson and Alex Bowman.

“We were really strong in Daytona obviously, we sat on the pole and we were fast all day and ran up front for a good part of the day,” Bowman said. “I think we can be really strong we’ve just got to keep it up front and stay out of trouble.

“It’s easy to get caught up in somebody else’s mess here. We will try to lead every lap and go from there.”

Almost 10 drivers were forced to sit out the final 15 minutes of Friday’s first practice session for various violations last weekend at Richmond (Va.) Raceway.

They were: Suarez and David Ragan for being late to qualifying inspection; Kurt Busch and Truex for being late to race inspection; Bayne, Ty Dillon and Jones for failing pre-qualifying inspection twice; and Michael McDowell and Johnson for failing pre-race inspection twice.

Cla#DriverManufacturerLapsTimeGapIntervalMph 1 13 united_states Ty Dillon Chevrolet 16 47.182 202.959 2 19 mexico Daniel Suarez Toyota 10 47.247 0.065 0.065 202.680 3 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 25 47.247 0.065 0.000 202.680 4 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 17 47.249 0.067 0.002 202.671 5 31 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 20 47.257 0.075 0.008 202.637 6 78 united_states Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 11 47.259 0.077 0.002 202.628 7 20 Erik Jones Toyota 11 47.274 0.092 0.015 202.564 8 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 24 47.276 0.094 0.002 202.555 9 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 10 47.859 0.677 0.583 200.088 10 88 Alex Bowman Chevrolet 31 47.889 0.707 0.030 199.962 11 43 united_states Darrell Wallace Jr. Chevrolet 21 47.939 0.757 0.050 199.754 12 24 William Byron Chevrolet 16 47.945 0.763 0.006 199.729 13 6 Trevor Bayne Ford 19 47.958 0.776 0.013 199.675 14 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 22 48.024 0.842 0.066 199.400 15 34 Michael McDowell Ford 19 48.138 0.956 0.114 198.928 16 38 united_states David Ragan Ford 19 48.477 1.295 0.339 197.537 17 42 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 13 48.560 1.378 0.083 197.199 18 47 A.J. Allmendinger Chevrolet 23 48.778 1.596 0.218 196.318 19 41 Kurt Busch Ford 10 48.791 1.609 0.013 196.266 20 10 Aric Almirola Ford 13 49.067 1.885 0.276 195.162 21 4 united_states Kevin Harvick Ford 15 49.230 2.048 0.163 194.516 22 22 Joey Logano Ford 21 49.439 2.257 0.209 193.693 23 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 22 49.779 2.597 0.340 192.370 24 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 12 49.878 2.696 0.099 191.988 25 95 Kasey Kahne Chevrolet 13 49.918 2.736 0.040 191.835 26 12 united_states Ryan Blaney Ford 20 49.967 2.785 0.049 191.646 27 21 Paul Menard Ford 13 49.986 2.804 0.019 191.574 28 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 14 49.991 2.809 0.005 191.554 29 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 17 50.089 2.907 0.098 191.180 30 9 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 14 50.137 2.955 0.048 190.997 31 00 united_states Joey Gase Chevrolet 12 50.472 3.290 0.335 189.729 32 162 Brendan Gaughan Chevrolet 7 50.612 3.430 0.140 189.204 33 96 canada D.J. Kennington Toyota 6 51.036 3.854 0.424 187.632 34 32 Matt DiBenedetto Ford 14 51.319 4.137 0.283 186.598 35 92 Timothy Peters Ford 9 51.954 4.772 0.635 184.317 36 55 united_states Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 4 52.007 4.825 0.053 184.129

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