Final Practice Can-Am 500
ISM Raceway
Saturday November 10 2 pm ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
Most like race conditions in this session
Penalized Drivers
Martin Truex Jr. penalized 30 minutes at the end of the session
Top-20 Speeds (one lap)
Pos | Car | Driver | Make | Laps | Last Lap | Best Time | Best Speed | Best Lap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 4 | Kevin Harvick (P) | Ford | 53 | 130.095 | 26.642 | 135.125 | 6 |
2 | 2 | Brad Keselowski | Ford | 46 | 115.034 | 26.769 | 134.484 | 5 |
3 | 18 | Kyle Busch (P) | Toyota | 49 | 129.772 | 26.804 | 134.308 | 5 |
4 | 20 | Erik Jones | Toyota | 32 | 99.472 | 26.866 | 133.998 | 5 |
5 | 78 | Martin Truex Jr. (P) | Toyota | 28 | 132.081 | 26.88 | 133.929 | 8 |
6 | 24 | William Byron # | Chevy | 48 | 128.677 | 26.884 | 133.909 | 8 |
7 | 10 | Aric Almirola (P) | Ford | 41 | 105.702 | 26.893 | 133.864 | 5 |
8 | 42 | Kyle Larson | Chevy | 42 | 123.55 | 26.894 | 133.859 | 3 |
9 | 22 | Joey Logano (P) | Ford | 59 | 126.449 | 26.902 | 133.819 | 5 |
10 | 3 | Austin Dillon | Chevy | 46 | 129.529 | 26.912 | 133.769 | 5 |
11 | 1 | Jamie McMurray | Chevy | 60 | 128.65 | 26.916 | 133.749 | 4 |
12 | 9 | Chase Elliott (P) | Chevy | 52 | 131.776 | 26.926 | 133.7 | 3 |
13 | 41 | Kurt Busch (P) | Ford | 58 | 118.581 | 26.931 | 133.675 | 9 |
14 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Toyota | 48 | 105.485 | 26.931 | 133.675 | 8 |
15 | 6 | Matt Kenseth | Ford | 40 | 116.028 | 26.955 | 133.556 | 4 |
16 | 88 | Alex Bowman | Chevy | 52 | 130.567 | 26.956 | 133.551 | 5 |
17 | 19 | Daniel Suarez | Toyota | 53 | 130.397 | 26.975 | 133.457 | 5 |
18 | 12 | Ryan Blaney | Ford | 27 | 132.93 | 26.976 | 133.452 | 23 |
19 | 14 | Clint Bowyer (P) | Ford | 50 | 129.725 | 26.988 | 133.393 | 6 |
20 | 17 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Ford | 40 | 130.133 | 26.995 | 133.358 | 6 |
Best Lap Averages
Items of Note:
- Early in practice Kevin Harvick has the fastest car once again on the track.
- Martin Truex Jr. is trying to get as much work done before the last 30 minute penalty kicks in and it has been a rough weekend this weekend for the 78-car after it took a while to make through pre-practice inspection and then was penalized.
- The 17-car had a brake fire while being worked on on pit road with 40 minutes left in the session.
- At the start of practice Truex, and Kyle Busch started in front of Harvick and after racing for a few laps, Harvick had passed both pretty quickly and then the 78 and 18 pitted.
- The new pit boxes have been pretty slick so far for cars getting into them so a lot of drivers have been practicing getting into and out of the boxes.
- Kurt Busch feels like after lap six his car is really really good and maybe the best one on the track, aside from his teammate.
- Erik Jones has been atop the average lap speed chart all practice, but he only ran 22 laps up until 10 minutes left in the session. With 7 minutes left he ran some more laps but said his car couldn’t connect the two sets of corners on the track. He said they can either be good in Turns 1 & 2 or Turns 3 & 4 but not both.
- With 2 minutes left in the session Paul Menard spun the car in Turn 3 and drove into the wall right rear first. They are going to a backup car but have no time to get the backup car on the track.
- Chase Elliott says he feels like they made gains on the car in the final practice and feels pretty ready for the race. He likes the pressure of having to likely win to get to Miami.
- Martin Truex Jr. seems to be happy with his car after Happy Hour but he will have to start from the back of the pack after failing inspection three times. He will count as starting P13 for the race however so keep that in mind.
- Jimmie Johnson likes the long run on the car but not the short run. He said the longer he ran the better he got in terms of speed and didn't have a problem with corner entry.
Second Practice for Can-Am 500
ISM Raceway
Saturday November 10 11:30 am ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
Cool temps because of the 9:30 am local time start of the practice
Penalized Drivers
No driver was penalized this practice
Top-20 Speeds (one lap)
Pos | Car | Driver | Make | Laps | Last Lap | Best Time | Best Speed | Best Lap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 4 | Kevin Harvick (P) | Ford | 27 | 80.857 | 26.724 | 134.71 | 5 |
2 | 42 | Kyle Larson | Chevy | 18 | 132.768 | 26.73 | 134.68 | 3 |
3 | 2 | Brad Keselowski | Ford | 31 | 77.431 | 26.77 | 134.479 | 4 |
4 | 18 | Kyle Busch (P) | Toyota | 40 | 108.085 | 26.811 | 134.273 | 5 |
5 | 12 | Ryan Blaney | Ford | 32 | 84.43 | 26.818 | 134.238 | 7 |
6 | 9 | Chase Elliott (P) | Chevy | 36 | 87.167 | 26.858 | 134.038 | 10 |
7 | 3 | Austin Dillon | Chevy | 34 | 93.473 | 26.868 | 133.988 | 3 |
8 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | Chevy | 33 | 95.673 | 26.876 | 133.949 | 23 |
9 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Toyota | 32 | 87.241 | 26.883 | 133.914 | 10 |
10 | 78 | Martin Truex Jr. (P) | Toyota | 31 | 78.747 | 26.902 | 133.819 | 5 |
11 | 14 | Clint Bowyer (P) | Ford | 42 | 93.77 | 26.936 | 133.65 | 4 |
12 | 19 | Daniel Suarez | Toyota | 45 | 94.132 | 26.939 | 133.635 | 5 |
13 | 88 | Alex Bowman | Chevy | 28 | 78.892 | 26.967 | 133.496 | 5 |
14 | 10 | Aric Almirola (P) | Ford | 39 | 79.961 | 26.979 | 133.437 | 7 |
15 | 41 | Kurt Busch (P) | Ford | 50 | 85.956 | 26.98 | 133.432 | 6 |
16 | 20 | Erik Jones | Toyota | 29 | 8.319 | 26.986 | 133.403 | 26 |
17 | 31 | Ryan Newman | Chevy | 26 | 129.529 | 27.002 | 133.323 | 5 |
18 | 24 | William Byron # | Chevy | 43 | 24.061 | 27.029 | 133.19 | 5 |
19 | 1 | Jamie McMurray | Chevy | 31 | 130.378 | 27.03 | 133.185 | 7 |
20 | 47 | AJ Allmendinger | Chevy | 28 | 131.31 | 27.033 | 133.171 | 6 |
Best Lap Averages
Items of Note:
- A few drivers are doing pit road testing at the start of the session with learning speeds and getting used to the new configuration of pit road in general
- The last 10 minutes of the session will be restart practice for the drivers since the restart zone and start/finish line have been moved since the March race and thus drivers need to get used to that as well.
- Pit road speed is 45 mph but drivers are allowed up to 49.999 mph before they are docked for speeding and given a penalty and so drivers are trying multiple lines around the curve the of pit road.
- Kurt Busch was 25 points behind the cut line after Harvick’s win at Texas but after the penalty, he is only 3 so he was a big beneficiary of his teammate’s penalty and now has a shot to point his way in.
- With 28 minutes left in practice Tanner Berryhill spun and brought out a caution though he didn’t hit anything when he spun
- Clint Bowyer got loose in Turns 3 and 4 and the car wouldn’t turn left as he got back into the throttle and about five minutes later got loose again and slid through Turn 2.
- Kurt Busch said his car is loose through the corner and can’t get the rear tires to grip like he was having trouble with at Richmond seven weeks ago.
- This is a short race lap-wise but it still has long runs of 40-60 laps in between cautions and pit runs.
- Daniel Suarez is working on getting low in Turns 1 & 2 like Harvick does in driving below the yellow line. He is also trying to get out of Turn 4 on a low line in order to be able to pass in the dogleg.
- The first ones to do the restart practice were rolling off in twos but not necessarily with teammates and Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin working together and Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. working together.
- The outside line of the restarts seems to spin the tires more often then the inside line did but there was a ton of diving down in the dogleg much like I referenced there would be during the podcast this week.
Opening Practice for Can-Am 500
ISM Raceway
Friday, November 9th 1:35 pm ET
55 minutes in length
Penalized Drivers
No drivers were penalized in the opening practice
Top-20 Speeds (one lap)
Best Lap Averages
No drivers ran 10-laps consecutively in this session
Items of Note:
- Drivers have gone out in qualifying trim for the most part since the qualifying sessions are on Friday evening.
- With 35 minutes left in practice, Kurt Busch was the only playoff driver to be on the track at that point.
- A lot of drivers were still waiting on the their cars to come back from the inspection area 20 minutes into practice time including Martin Truex Jr. and Chase Elliott and so they lost some track time on the redesigned surface and pit lane.
- Joey Logano is feeling pretty good about his car heading into the Championship next weekend and he thinks he’s the favorite for the title.
- Cody Ware, the driver of the 51-car got really loose going into Turn 1 because he had no brakes going into the corner and it’s the flattest one on the track at just 8-9 degrees of bank.
- The new redesign has moved the start/finish line and the pit road further around the corner and the pit road has been widened a bit as well.
- A few drivers have had issues with their cars getting loose in the turns and have driven a bit up the turns but none hit anything.
- Since the start of practice the track has gotten faster by quite a bit and it’s partially due to the new tires on the right sides of the cars since they were here in March.
- The fill ins for Kevin Harvick the next two weeks are Tony Gibson at Crew Chief (previously Kurt Busch’s Crew Chief) and an engineer from SHR is now the Car Chief the next two weeks.
- Martin Truex Jr. got out on the track with 12:30 left in the session after a slow inspection process and ran P22 in his first time out but then ran P20 by the end of the session.
- Matt Kenseth ran P7 in this session which is a great showing for the 6-car with the lack of speed they’ve shown throughout the season.