Image courtesy of Stewart-Haas Racing
Bowyer leads draft-fest in opening Daytona practice
Differing strategies for practice at Daytona International Speedway produced the expected results on the speed charts.
For instance, drafting among manufacturer teammates saw seven Fords go the top of the leaderboard led by Clint Bowyer. Bowyer was fastest at 200.799mph over Aric Almirola at 200.691mph.
Next came Brad Keselowski (200.553mph), Joey Logano (200.539mph), Ryan Blaney (200.530mph), Kurt Busch (200.521mph), and Kevin Harvick (200.503mph).
Completing the top 10 were the Chevrolet drivers of AJ Allmendinger (200.370mph), Chris Buescher (200.361mph), and Chase Elliott (200.129mph).
Elliott tweeted early Thursday he was ready to go this weekend after spraining his ankle while “horsing around at the pool.” Fortunately, the Hendrick Motorsports driver, who is also driving the GMS Racing No. 23 car in the Xfinity Series, said x-rays were clean.
Defending race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was 26th on the speed chart.
There were no incidents in the 50-minute session which featured a mixture of drafting and single-car runs. Forty of the 41 cars entered participated in the session.
UP NEXT: final practice at 4:05 p.m. ET.
Kelly Crandall
Kelly has been on the NASCAR beat full-time since 2013, and joined RACER as chief NASCAR writer in 2017. Her work has also appeared in NASCAR.com, the NASCAR Illustrated magazine, and NBC Sports. A corporate communications graduate from Central Penn College, Crandall is a two-time George Cunningham Writer of the Year recipient from the National Motorsports Press Association.
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