Accidents headline first day of LVMS testing

Two Evernham Motorsports cars paced the first day of Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Monday. But by the end of the day, the good sign turned to bad fortune.

Scott Riggs led a fast morning of testing during the opening session with a lap of 183.511 mph. Tony Stewart was second, followed by Riggs' teammate Kasey Kahne -- all of which topped the 183 mph mark. Kevin Harvick and Kahne placed two cars inside the top 10 on a fast, newly configured track that saw 91 of 94 cars surpass the track's qualifying record.

In the afternoon session, Kahne continued Evernham's good showing by pacing the session with a fast lap of 184.685 -- more than 1 mph faster than the early test. But as the session came to a close, Kahne slapped the wall in his No. 9 Dodge, bringing out the caution. It was the same car that Kahne drove to five of his six victories last season.

In fact, incidents were prevalent during Day 1 of the test.

Tony Raines suffered heavy damage to the left-rear and both front fenders when he spun and hit the outside retaining wall in the middle of Turns 3 and 4 during the morning session.

"It was on the edge to begin with and I got a little looser than I needed, obviously," said Raines, who was unhurt. "I hate that because I don't normally do that kind of stupid stuff in testing."

Just a few minutes later, Clint Bowyer was forced to go to his backup No. 07 Chevrolet when his engine let go.

"I was passing [Jeremy Mayfield] on the outside, trying to get off the track," Bowyer said. "I had him on the inside -- thank God he was paying attention because I didn't want to wreck anybody -- it just let go.

"It just kind of went 'boom!'"

Later on, A.J. Allmendinger hit the outside retaining wall while exiting Turn 2, suffering moderate damage to the right side of the No. 84 Toyota.

In the evening, Reed Sorenson and Greg Biffle were in separate crashes, followed by Brandon Whitt blowing a motor just before Kahne's wreck.