McDowell leads playoff-heavy Cup speed charts in Texas practice

Michael McDowell (185.771mph, 29.715s) laid down the quickest lap in practice for Sunday's Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.

He turned 19 total laps in the session with his quickest one coming just two laps in.

Joey Logano (185.764mph, 29.068s), Kyle Busch (185.592mph, 29.069s), Aric Almirola (185.305mph, 29.096s) and Kyle Larson (185.293mph, 29.141s) rounded out the top five speeds, while Erik Jones (185.236mph), William Byron (185.204mph), Denny Hamlin (185.140mph), AJ Allmendinger (185.083mph) and Ross Chastain (185.071mph) completed the top 10.

Larson topped the 10 lap average category (184.279mph), followed by Hamlin, Chastain, Allmendinger, Busch, Truex, Justin Haley, Ty Gibbs, Carson Hocevar, and Chase Elliott.

Larson was also fastest in 10, 15 and 20-lap averages, while Hamlin topped the 25-lap average. Chastain and Gibbs turned 27 laps, the most in the field.

As far as other playoff drivers that turned laps in the session, Chris Buescher ended up 11th, Ryan Blaney 13th, Bubba Wallace 14th, Brad Keselowski 15th, Martin Truex Jr. 17th, Tyler Reddick 21st and Christopher Bell 23rd.

Bell spun off Turn 2 with about five minutes remaining in Group A’s session, bringing out a brief stoppage. It was the only incident in the afternoon’s dual sessions.

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There are 36 drivers entered for Sunday’s race (3:30 p.m. ET on USA).