DFS NASCAR: STP 500 Practice Notes

Qualifying Notes

Saturday March 23rd, 2019 - 5:00pm ET; Track temperature = 95 degrees

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s time on his first run during qualifying didn't count due to speeding on pit road. On his second run just before the first round of qualifying ended, he finished just outside the Top 24, so he'll start 25th on Sunday.

Daniel Suarez was penalized for speeding while exiting pit road, but he still managed to qualify 10th for Sunday's race.

Practice to Qualifying Table

Afternoon Practice Notes

Track temp for the second practice was 86 degrees.

With 15 minutes to go Chase Elliott is in the lead with a 19.413-second lap.

William Byron still experienced his share of struggles after crashing in the first practice.

Cody Ware lost control on his car towards the end of the second practice second. It looked like his rear tires lost grip and he spun out and took a good amount of damage to his vehicle.

The Chevy’s have looked great through both practices. Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Jimmie Johnson, and Austin Dillon had the fastest times in the final practice with Ty Dillon and Daniel Hemric cracking the Top 10 as well.

Three drivers from Hendrick Motorsports (Elliott, Bowman, Johnson) finished Top 3, while William Byron continued to have a rough day.

Morning Practice Notes

William Byron lasted one lap in the first practice before losing a tire and going straight into the wall and saw some damage to the right front suspension after he was unable to get the car to turn.

About 15 minutes later, nearly the same incident happened to Corey LaJoie and he sustained heavier damage to his car than Byron due to brake failure.

Clint Bowyer ran a 19.61-second lap early in the first practice and looked really good getting around the paperclip track, and then ran a 19.57-lap on his 12^th lap.

With 22 minutes to go in the first practice, Aric Almirola had the fastest lap at 19.527 seconds followed by Martin Truex Jr. at 19.534 and then followed by the hottest driver in the field, Kyle Busch at 19.545.

With 10 minutes to go Daniel Suarez was a 19.470-second lap to jump to the top of the leaderboard and then was almost immediately passed by his teammate, Clint Bowyer, who posted a faster lap at 19.387 seconds. SHR managed to finished the first practice running 1, 2, and 3.