Truex paces final Vegas Cup practice

Martin Truex Jr.'s fast Las Vegas weekend continued Saturday afternoon in final practice.

Truex topped the 1 hour, 50-minute session at 188.613 mph over Chase Elliott at 188.574 mph. The Furniture Row Racing driver was also fastest in the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice session on Friday and qualified second for the Kobalt 400.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was third fastest at 188.436 mph with Matt Kenseth (188.258 mph) and polesitter Brad Keselowski (188.140 mph) rounding out the top five.

The rest of the top 10 were Kyle Larson (188.134 mph), Kasey Kahne (187.702 mph), Ryan Blaney (187.656 mph), Daniel Suarez (187.487 mph), and Austin Dillon (187.266 mph).

Kyle Busch was 16th fastest at 186.091 mph, but scrapped the wall during the session. Fortunately, it resulted in minor damage to the No. 18 Toyota.

With less than 10 minutes remaining the session, however, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. hit the Turn 1 wall hard enough his Roush Fenway Racing team had to pull out the backup car. The right side of the No. 17 Ford was severely damaged when Stenhouse got loose over the bumps and was shot towards the outside wall.

He will start Sunday's race without any laps on the back-up car.

"It's OK," Stenhouse said. "Our back-up cars are prepared the way they need to be, so not really worried about going to a back-up and starting the race. We didn't qualify very well, so we were already at the back anyway, but we've got a lot of work to do with our Fastenal Ford.

"We've been really loose all weekend and it just finally bit us there and got too loose into Turn 1. But sometimes you just want to try the other car anyways, so we got the opportunity. The guys will make some good changes and I feel confident for the race they'll get it right."