Practice report
NASCAR Cup Charlotte II
Larson tops incident-packed first practice at Charlotte
Kyle Larson claims he’s been hit or miss at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Lee Spencer
Edited: Oct 7, 2017, 12:59 PM
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On Friday, he hit the top of the speed chart with a lap of 192.082mph after 12 laps in first practice for the Bank of America 500.
“Charlotte has been kind of a hit or miss track for me, but I’m usually pretty good during the day there, so hopefully a day race will favor me,” Larson said. “We obviously want to win in each round and not have to worry about the points, but if we can continue to be consistent and finish around the top-five, we should put ourselves in a good position to move on. We just need to stay focused and work to be mistake free this weekend.”
Ryan Newman was second followed by Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., Michael McDowell, Jamie McMurray and Kurt Busch.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. plowed into the Turn 4 wall working his fifth lap in practice. He’d posted a quick lap of 187.780mph before the car snapped loose. The No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team pulled out Earnhardt’s back up car.
“There was nothing I could do, it just took off,” Earnhardt said. “I got into this black stuff and it just took off into the fence. I think the car was pretty good, but had to pull a back-up out. It should be fine though. It’s a good thing that it happened early and we will get to practice tomorrow and get to work on it.”
The race returned to green with 85-minutes remaining in the session. Michael McDowell’s lap of 190.255mph was fastest followed by Larson, Elliott, Kurt Busch, Earnhardt, Almirola, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne, AJ Allmendinger, Austin Dillon, Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard, Danica Patrick, Joey Logano, Trevor Bayne, Chris Buescher and Ty Dillon. Ryan Blaney was the next driver to top the chart (190.853mph) just after the 11-minute mark. Hamlin followed with a lap of 191.137mph.
In the first 15-minutes, Hamlin retained the top spot followed by Blaney, McDowell, Erik Jones (189.954mph), Bowyer (189.003mph), Larson (188.009mph), Elliott (187.846mph) Kurt Busch (187.846mph) and Earnhardt.
Over the next five minutes, Kyle Busch posted the fifth-fastest lap (190.007mph) and Keselowski speed of 189.421mph was seventh quick.
NASCAR called a caution for possible oil in Turn 4 at the 20-minute mark. Ten minutes later, practice continued with 34 drivers making initial runs. Hamlin remained on top of the speed chart followed by Blaney, Ryan Newman (190.611mph), McDowell, Busch, Jones, Keselowski, Bowyer, Larson and Elliott.
Kurt Busch, Earnhardt, Martin Truex Jr. (187.546mph), Aric Almirola, Kevin Harvick (187.292mph), Daniel Suarez and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top 20 speeds.
Keselowski lost the back end of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford coming out of Turn 4 on his third lap. After the track was clean, Newman shot to the top of the speed chart with a lap of 191.442mph.
Jimmie Johnson posted his first laps 45 minutes into first practice. He was initially 11th-quick with his two-lap run (188.587mph) before Jamie McMurray bumped him with a lap of 188.983mph. Truex knocked both drivers down the board with his lap of 189.274mph.
Larson (192.082mph) bumped Newman from the top spot just prior to the one-hour mark. Hamlin dropped to third followed by Blaney, McDowell, Bowyer, Austin Dillon, Kahne, Kyle Busch and Jones.
NASCAR called Kyle Busch to the hauler for speeding on pit road just after the first hour. He’s completed four laps.
Earnhardt returned to the track in his back up car 65 minutes into practice. He ran two laps with a top speed of 187.376mph. Larson held the top spot as driver continued making mock qualifying runs. Harvick bounced up to third (191.225mph) at the 70-minute mark. Hamlin dropped to fourth followed by Blaney, McDowell, McMurray (190.658mph), Allmendinger, Bowyer and Dillon. Elliott vaulted to fifth (191.090mph).
With 10 minutes to go, Kyle Busch pounded the wall in Turn 4. He was the fourth driver to struggle in Turn 4 along with Earnhardt, Keselowski and David Ragan.
“Done,” Busch told the team as NASCAR waved the yellow again.
After his first run Busch remarked that the VHT was too slick. “The juice sucks, it's really bad. It’s because they didn't use the tire dragon on it to burn it in.”
Truex moved up to seventh (190.772mph) over the final 10 minutes.
Watch Dale Earnhardt Jr. have trouble early in the practice session:
Kyle Busch also had trouble in the first practice session:
Brad Keselowski also went for a spin:
Cla#DriverManufacturerLapsTimeGapIntervalMph 1 42 
Kyle Larson Chevrolet 12 28.113 192.082 2 31 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 7 28.207 0.094 0.094 191.442 3 4 Kevin Harvick Ford 8 28.239 0.126 0.032 191.225 4 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 8 28.252 0.139 0.013 191.137 5 24 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 14 28.259 0.146 0.007 191.090 6 21 Ryan Blaney Ford 9 28.294 0.181 0.035 190.853 7 78 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 9 28.306 0.193 0.012 190.772 8 95 Michael McDowell Chevrolet 5 28.307 0.194 0.001 190.766 9 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 14 28.323 0.210 0.016 190.658 10 41 Kurt Busch Ford 13 28.333 0.220 0.010 190.590 11 47 A.J. Allmendinger Chevrolet 16 28.364 0.251 0.031 190.382 12 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 11 28.382 0.269 0.018 190.261 13 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 13 28.393 0.280 0.011 190.188 14 5 Kasey Kahne Chevrolet 17 28.397 0.284 0.004 190.161 15 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 6 28.399 0.286 0.002 190.148 16 20 Matt Kenseth Toyota 8 28.402 0.289 0.003 190.127 17 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 6 28.420 0.307 0.018 190.007 18 77 Erik Jones Toyota 8 28.424 0.311 0.004 189.980 19 27 Paul Menard Chevrolet 19 28.453 0.340 0.029 189.787 20 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 5 28.508 0.395 0.055 189.421 21 19 
Daniel Suarez Toyota 9 28.537 0.424 0.029 189.228 22 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 17 28.669 0.556 0.132 188.357 23 6 Trevor Bayne Ford 20 28.713 0.600 0.044 188.068 24 22 Joey Logano Ford 22 28.729 0.616 0.016 187.963 25 10 Danica Patrick Ford 20 28.756 0.643 0.027 187.787 26 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 8 28.757 0.644 0.001 187.780 27 43 Aric Almirola Ford 6 28.796 0.683 0.039 187.526 28 13 Ty Dillon Chevrolet 18 28.876 0.763 0.080 187.007 29 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 15 28.950 0.837 0.074 186.528 30 32 Matt DiBenedetto Ford 12 29.133 1.020 0.183 185.357 31 72 Cole Whitt Chevrolet 11 29.360 1.247 0.227 183.924 32 34 Landon Cassill Ford 21 29.441 1.328 0.081 183.418 33 15 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 6 29.612 1.499 0.171 182.359 34 38 David Ragan Ford 3 29.881 1.768 0.269 180.717 35 33 Jeffrey Earnhardt Chevrolet 15 29.977 1.864 0.096 180.138 36 66 Timmy Hill Chevrolet 1 30.077 1.964 0.100 179.539 37 51 B.J. McLeod Chevrolet 7 30.204 2.091 0.127 178.784 38 55 Gray Gaulding Toyota 12 30.266 2.153 0.062 178.418
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