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McDowell tops opening Daytona 500 practice
One practice is complete at Daytona International Speedway, and it is so far, so good for teams hoping their new Next Gen race cars stay in one piece.
All 42 of the drivers entered in the Daytona 500 made it onto the track on Tuesday evening in the first official practice session of the 2022 season. There were no incidents, and the largest drafting pack was six cars, which were the Toyota teammates.
The defending Daytona 500 winner, Michael McDowell, was the fastest in the 50-minute session. McDowell was aided in a draft with some of his fellow Ford teammates.
McDowell clocked in at 192.73mph (46.696 seconds). He ran 25 laps.
“It’s fun to come back here to Daytona being top of the board,” said McDowell. “I don’t know if it means a whole lot for the weekend, but we’ve got a fast Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang, working with our Roush teammates there and my teammate Todd Gilliland. We didn’t want to get into too crazy of a pack, but wanted to get up to speed and know how far the cars are traveling and what we need to do. So, proud of everybody at Front Row Motorsports; it’s been a crazy off-season getting this Next Gen car ready. But feel good about coming back to Daytona and hopefully being able to defend our Daytona 500 victory.”
David Ragan was second-fastest at 192.66mph, with Todd Gilliland third at 192.649 mph. Gilliland is a rookie who not only makes his first Daytona 500 start this weekend, but his first points start in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Brad Keselowski was fourth-fastest at 192.60mph, and Chris Buescher was fifth-fastest at 192.57mph. The new RFK Racing teammates also spent time drafting together.
The rest of the top 10 in opening practice was Martin Truex Jr. sixth (191.18mph), Darrell Wallace Jr. seventh (191.16mph), Denny Hamlin eighth (191.15mph), Kurt Busch ninth (191.14mph), and Kyle Busch 10th (191.12mph).
Reigning series champion Kyle Larson was 13th-fastest at 190.94mph.
The fastest unchartered car was Greg Biffle for NY Racing in the No. 44 Chevrolet, who was 17th on the speed chart at 188.17mph. He was followed by the unchartered car of Noah Gragson for Beard Motorsports at 188.08mph.
The session was briefly halted for the stalled car of B.J. McLeod, who was the slowest in practice at 177.61mph.
The most laps run was 27 by three drivers: Wallace, Kyle Busch and Christopher Bell.
UP NEXT: Second practice at 6:35 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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