Erik Jones paced the only practice session for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway with a lap of 127.843mph.
Jones was fastest ahead of his Toyota teammate Kyle Busch (127.090mph), Ryan Blaney (126.989mph), Martin Truex Jr. (126.964mph), and Matt Kenseth (126.704mph). The 55-minute session was the only track time the Cup Series had Friday with rain washing out qualifying.
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The rest of the top 10 were Denny Hamlin (126.653mph), Kyle Larson (126.520mph), Jamie McMurray (126.503mph), Joey Logano (126.445mph), and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (126.395mph).
There were two incidents during the session.
Chase Elliott went for a long slide down the frontstretch after spinning off Turn 4. Fortunately, Elliott avoided contact in his No. 24 Chevrolet. Joey Logano, however, did slap the Turn 4 wall with his No. 22 Ford later in the session.
“There were two of the Fords coming in, the 10 (Danica Patrick) was trying to let the 4 (Kevin Harvick) go and then I thought the 10 was letting me go and then she went into the corner and that put me in the outside lane, which I didn’t think was a big deal, and it’s just the track was so dirty,” Logano said.
“It’s amazing how quick it did that. Unfortunately, we got a little damage on our AutoTrader Fusion, but it’s nothing that’s not fixable. We’ll be able to fix that. Our car was pretty quick. We were making some good changes and learning some good things, so we’ll fix it up and make some good adjustments. We’ll be just fine.”
By the rulebook, point leader Kyle Larson will start on pole in Sunday’s race (2 p.m. ET, FOX). The defending winner of the Food City 500 is Carl Edwards, who is not competing this season.
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