Quiet practice erupts with late spin by Menard, Speed

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- With little more than 15 minutes remaining in the final practice for the Budweiser Shootout Friday night at Daytona International Speedway, pole-sitter Paul Menard and rookie Scott Speed broke up what had been a quiet evening of testing.

Menard's No. 98 Yates Racing Ford was driving through Turn 1 when the right-rear tire deflated, causing the car to spin sideways (watch video).

Menard

Speed

Speed's No. 82 Red Bull Racing Toyota slowed while closely following Menard, but creased Menard's car from in front of the driver's door forward with the right-front corner of his Camry. Speed was ninth-quickest of 28 cars in the first session and 11th in the second before he crashed.

"It's definitely good that we got most of practice in," said Speed, who drove back to his garage. "It's good that I got my first wreck under my belt here at Daytona. I came out of it and I was OK.

"The guy in front of me started spinning out and slowing down so I started doing the same. I couldn't really see much, honestly. For sure it's going to be an interesting race [Saturday] and I'm looking forward to it."

Red Bull team manager Elton Sawyer said the damage to Speed's car was "all cosmetic" as his crew worked on every corner of it. Menard's car was put on a roll-back after suffering additional minor right-rear damage when it hit the wall. Crew chief Larry Carter said repairing the car would be no problem.

"It caught me by surprise," said Menard, who drew the pole position for Saturday night's season-opening special event. "I don't know if we ran over something or the tire just let loose, but going into [Turn] 1 it felt like the tire was going down and it just snapped sideways."

Richard Childress Racing's Jeff Burton blew an engine in his No. 31 Chevrolet on his third lap of the second Shootout session (watch video), the only other major incident in 110 minutes of practice, which occurred when NASCAR extended practice by five minutes.

"Our guys were real aggressive with our engine package here for the Shootout, which is what they're supposed to be doing," Burton said. "I'm proud of them for throwing caution to the wind and coming out here to try to win this race."

Burton laughed when asked what he was able to tell about his car.

"Those two laps it drove great. Tune in [Saturday] and we'll find out," Burton said. "The engine we are going to put in is a real good engine. It's not like this one, but that was the special stuff -- but that is all right."

RCR teammate Kevin Harvick, who was 22nd and 27th in the two practices, respectively, said he wasn't worried about Burton's engine issue.

"Hopefully it was something freak on [Burton's car]," Harvick said. "They were trying some stuff."

Kasey Kahne's No. 9 Richard Petty Motorsports Dodge was scuffed along the right side when it kissed the wall, and teammate Reed Sorenson's No. 43 Dodge suffered some minor front end damage when it hit the right-rear corner of Kyle Busch's No. 18 Toyota, which also suffered minor cosmetic damage.

Busch was fastest in the first practice ahead of three-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and Matt Kenseth's No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. In final practice, Johnson led A.J. Allmendinger's No. 44 RPM Dodge and defending Shootout winner Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 Hendrick Chevrolet.