Austin Dillon paces second Daytona 500 practice

Austin Dillon led a large contingent of Chevrolet drivers who were at the front of the leaderboard in the second practice session for the Daytona 500.

It was the first time teams were back on track to shake down and adjust their cars after the qualifying races. Dillon, the 2018 winner of the Daytona 500, posted the fastest lap of 195.627 mph (46.006s). With only 11 laps on track, Dillon was among the drivers who spent the least amount of time behind the wheel.

“I’m just happy so far with our effort as a group,” Dillon said. “There are a couple of things here and there that I’d like to get handling a little bit better, but they're things you can deal with when you’ve got a car that can run fast. So, I’m optimistic. On Sunday, there is a lot that goes into that race. It’s a long race and you’ve got to get through a lot of different strategies to get to the end to win it, so you can’t get too jacked up over the last couple of days because Sunday just changes everything.”

Alex Bowman was second fastest at 195.452 mph, and Justin Allgaier was third fastest at 195.071 mph. Allgaier is driving for JR Motorsports, an affiliate partner car of Hendrick Motorsports that uses a Hendrick engine.

Chase Elliott was fourth fastest at 195.020 mph, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fifth fastest at 194.974 mph, and Shane van Gisbergen was sixth fastest at 194.641 mph. William Byron, in his backup car, was seventh fastest at 194.628 mph, and Ross Chastain, at 194.599 mph, was eighth fastest.

Kyle Larson was ninth fastest at 194.595 mph, and Connor Zilisch completed the top 10 at 194.565 mph. Zilisch will make his Daytona 500 debut on Sunday as he begins his rookie campaign in the Cup Series.

The fastest Ford driver was Josh Berry in his Wood Brothers Racing machine. Berry was 11th on the speed chart at 194.355 mph.

“It’s been a pretty solid weekend,” Berry said. “We didn’t quite get up to the front until the end of the duel; just did the fuel savings and strategy of how it all worked out. But I honestly felt really good about my car making that charge to the front at the end that we were able to do to get to sixth. I’ve been searching for a balance here, really, ever since the July race in the [No.] 4 car when I had the flip. I felt like I had a really good balance that night and have been searching for that in the [No.] 21, and I feel like I’m pretty close and was pretty happy with my car yesterday.

“In that practice, [it was the] same thing. So, hopefully that translates to Sunday.”

Christopher Bell was the fastest Toyota driver. He ran a lap of 193.569 mph in his Joe Gibbs Racing car.

“It was surprising,” Bell said. “I found myself in really, really good positions to lay fast laps down in practice, and before I looked at the speed chart, I would have expected myself to be right near the top. I found myself at the back of the draft with gaps, and was able to attempt to close the gaps, and I thought I was going to be up on the speed charts, and the fact that we weren’t is definitely alarming.

“But with that being said, in the duel, I felt fine and felt competitive. Maybe it tapers your strategy a little bit, where you don’t commit to the Toyotas. I don’t know. But I raced fine in the duel last night. But certainly, it was a little alarming that I was in good aero positions to get good drats and make big hay, and we didn’t do it. So, I don’t know.”

Of the 41 teams that will run in Sunday’s race, there were four that chose not to participate in the session. They were Garage 66 (Casey Mears), Rick Ware Racing (Cody Ware), RFK Racing (Ryan Preece), and Kaulig Racing (AJ Allmendinger). They are expected to be back on track for Saturday’s final practice session.

Allmendinger was seen sporting a wrapped left hand on Friday; it was for comfort after being involved in an on-track incident in his Thursday night qualifying race. He was checked and released from the infield care center without any breaks or fractures, but was dealing with some soreness.

The fewest number of laps run in practice was by Carson Hocevar at five. The most laps run came from a pair of Front Row Motorsports teammates, with Zane Smith and Todd Gilliland each logging 34 laps.

In the best 10 consecutive lap averages, Allgaier led the way over Larson, Byron, Bowman, and Stenhouse.

NEXT: Final practice for the Daytona 500 at 3 p.m. ET Saturday.