Kurt Busch tops speed chart in early Cup practice

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Staff Report

Pole-sitter Carl Edwards runs just behind

BROOKLYN, Mich. — After each earning a front row starting position in Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 Sprint Cup Series race, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards remained dominant at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday morning in a practice session that saw the pair top the leaderboard yet again.

Busch once again topped 200 mph, pulling a best speed of 200.955, getting around the two-mile circuit in 35.829 seconds. Edwards, fresh off his first Coors Light Pole at perhaps his best track, was right behind him at 199.595. Jimmie Johnson (199.584), Paul Menard (198.933) and Mark Martin (198.818) rounded out the top-five.

Kasey Kahne, yesterday’s opening practice leader, was sixth with a speed of 198.747. Last year’s Michigan fall race winner Greg Biffle, driving for a Roush Fenway Racing team that has the most Sprint Cup wins (12) at this track, was seventh at 198.725.

Reigning Sprint Cup champion and Michigan native Brad Keselowski pulled in at 11th with a speed of 198.358. Defending race-winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 14th at 198.091. Marcos Ambrose, who set the qualifying record at 203.241 mph at this race last year, was 21st at 197.379. Austin Dillon, who will also be running the Nationwide Series race later today, put down the second most laps with 30 runs around the circuit. Johnson completed 36.

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Posted on June 15, 2013 by Nascar

Michigan pole winner: Second-place ranking in points ‘doesn’t tell the story’

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Carl Edwards, winner of the Coors Light Pole Award for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway, is second in points in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series.

It’s a misleading statistic, according to Edwards.

“Second place doesn’t tell the story,” he said June 13. “We’re not that good. We’re not the second-best car in the series right now.”

Edwards, 33, has one win this season (Phoenix) and Friday’s qualifying lap (202.452 mph) on the 2-mile oval marked the second consecutive week he earned a front-row starting position.

"If we can really focus and actually gain some ground, we’re going to be awesome."

— Carl Edwards

But from a big-picture perspective, the fastest driver on Friday said not so fast.

“It’s nice,” he said of his position in the standings. “But what did we run, 18th at Pocono and 17th at Dover? Sixteenth? I don’t remember what we ran at Dover but it wasn’t good enough.

“And at the same time, Jimmie Johnson dominated both those races.

“That’s a big disparity between the first-place points guy and the second-place points guy.”

With race No. 15 on the horizon, the gap is 51 points. It is so large that Johnson, a five-time Cup champion, could take a weekend off and return with his points-leader status intact.

Points leads can be fleeting — defending series champion Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have each been atop the standings briefly this season. Johnson’s has more of a permanent feel, having lasted for two months and change.

Edwards has been in Johnson’s rearview for six weeks, the deficit as narrow as 30 and as wide as the current 51.

Although he said he doesn’t feel his team is second best, Edwards is pleased with the No. 2 points position.

“Fortunately we are second and we have a win,” he said. “We’re not panicking about making the Chase (for the Sprint Cup). We feel like we’ve got a really good shot at making the Chase, but we have time to work on some things. And trust me, we are working.

“ … If we can really focus and actually gain some ground, we’re going to be awesome.”

Kurt Busch (Furniture Row Racing) will start alongside Edwards, the fourth front-row starting spot this season for the 2004 Cup champion.

Kasey Kahne (Hendrick Motorsports), Paul Menard (Richard Childress Racing) and Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports) will start third through fifth, respectively.

A closer working relationship between Ford Cup teams is said to be in the making. Edwards cautioned it could take time — possibly a year or more — before any potential benefits might be realized.

Change comes slowly. Few drivers and teams are comfortable sharing information with those outside their immediate groups.

“It’s human nature,” Edwards said. “It’s tough for anyone to hand over all of their life’s work and say, ‘hey, here’s this for free. I hope you give me something back that makes it worth the exchange.’

“Trust isn’t something you build overnight, by definition it’s something that’s gained over time.

“I’ve been in the series for eight or nine years and there are only a few guys I’ve ever talked about my car with, and it’s always on the surface. You don’t talk much deeper than, ‘hey, yeah I’m a little tight over there.’ That’s about it.”

Edwards has 13 top-10 finishes in 17 starts at MIS, including a pair of wins. It’s also the site of his first career start in the Cup Series.

That fact wasn’t lost on him in the aftermath of his pole-winning charge.

“A huge day for me personally,” he said of the 10th place finish in 2004. “I will never forget when they said ‘Gentlemen, start your engines.’ That was one of the most emotional moments I’ve ever had in a race car.”

While Edwards’ pole-winning run didn’t eclipse the track record set a year ago by Marcos Ambrose, the Generation-6 car was fast as expected. Taped up for qualifying, Edwards said, the cars have “so much grip.”

That will change when long runs are the order of the day.

“Having that tape on there with all that downforce can make the car feel really good and make it go for a lap but it will be a tough race,” he said. “I think if it goes long green flag, then none of us know how the tire will act and you have to be able to adjust on your car as well.

“The race will be different and hopefully we can master that whole problem and go to Victory Lane. That would be huge.”

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Nascar

RCR driver can’t cash in after fourth consecutive pole

BROOKLYN, Mich. — It was frustration, Austin Dillon said, that led to contact between himself and Joey Logano during the latter stages of Saturday’s Alliance Truck Parts 250 at Michigan International Speedway.

And that led to a brief conversation between the two on pit road after the conclusion of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

“He was frustrated back there,” Dillon, 20th, said of his Sprint Cup Series counterpart. “… We were both frustrated because things didn’t go our way.

“But we’ll come back and do our best to gain on what we’ve lost today. Just a bummer day.”

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The contact came during a final, furious push to the checkered flag in the 125-lap event.

Dillon, who led 61 of the race’s first 68 laps, was charging toward the front, having rebounded from a lost lap due to a flat left-rear tire.

Logano, who led 30 laps (69-98) was in a scramble mode as well, a round of pit stops and differing pit strategies taking him from the point to just inside the top 10.

“We were three-wide on the bottom, I had the run, my nose was in front of his,” Dillon said. “I drove in deep and slid up and he was frustrated because I slid up in the middle of the corner.

“We came off side-by-side off of (Turn) 2, got midway down the backstretch and he just turned left on me.”

The contact knocked the fender in on the tire, he said, and led to another flat for the Richard Childress Racing driver, sending him back to pit road inside the final five laps.

With the race past the midpoint, and threatening skies overhead, Logano and his Penske team had wagered on a rain-shortened event, gaining track position under caution by staying on the track.

The rain, though, didn’t come until after the completion of the race.

“Unfortunately we gambled … and went for it,” Logano said. “It is just unfortunate and frustrating. I don’t even know where we finished but once you get back there in the pack, it is just a mess trying to pass cars here.”

The 11th-place finish halted a four-race run of top-five finishes for Logano, who won two weeks ago at Dover, Del.

Dillon began the day by winning a series-record fourth consecutive Coors Light Pole Award. But for the second consecutive week, a strong run went awry. At Iowa, he led 207 of 250 laps but lost the lead, and the win to Trevor Bayne with 12 laps remaining.

Although he maintained his fourth-place points position, Dillon now trails points leader, and Michigan race winner, Regan Smith by 67 points. He entered the race trailing by 46.

“We work hard to build fast race cars and the strategy we were on wasn’t wrong,” he said. “We had the right strategy there at the end. The seven (of Smith) and 32 (of Kyle Larson) finished 1-2 on that strategy.

“The speed was there. I’m really proud of my guys. It’s frustrating; we’ve got a monkey on our back and we’ve got to get it off.”

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Staff Report

Enter Article Subhead

Ford earned its 1,000^th NASCAR national series win on Saturday at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.

Trevor Bayne, who claimed the manufacturer’s 200^th NASCAR Nationwide Series victory last Sunday at Iowa and its 600^th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in the 2011 Daytona 500, did the honors as the Blue Oval celebrated about an hour drive west of its Dearborn headquarters.

FORD’S 1,000 NASCAR WINS

— 614 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins by Ford
— 96 Sprint Cup wins by Mercury
— 4 Sprint Cup wins by Lincoln
— 201 NASCAR Nationwide Series wins by Ford
— 85 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series wins by Ford

The milestone comes nearly 112 years after Henry Ford defeated Alexander Winton in a 10-lap race on the one-mile oval at the Detroit Driving Club in Grosse Pointe, Mich. on Oct. 10, 1901. It was the first and only race Ford ran and set him on the road to establishing Ford Motor Company 110 years ago this month.

Ford designed the car, named “Sweepstakes,” that won his company’s first race. On Thursday at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Carl Edwards became one of “only eight or nine people” to drive “Sweepstakes.” After winning the Coors Light Pole Award with an average lap of 202.452 mph, Edwards talked about driving Ford Racing’s first winning car.

“We got it up to maybe 20 or 25 miles per hour driving on the road there, and they said it would go 73 miles per hour in 1901,” Edwards said. “It was scarier driving that thing 25 miles per hour than it was driving the corner here at 205. Those guys were brave.

“The neatest thing about that which I didn’t know until I talked with Edsel Ford (great-grandson of Henry Ford and member of the board of directors of Ford Motor Company) and the guys there is that if it weren’t for winning that race, Ford Motor Company as we know it might not exist,” Edwards said. “For him to risk everything and build this race car and go out and race it and win and be able to put together investors for Ford Motor Company was huge.”

Bayne’s win extended owner Jack Roush’s record to six victories in the Nationwide Series at his home track. It was the seventh series win for Ford at the track.

On Friday, Bayne thanked Jamie Allison, director of Ford Racing, for the manufacturer’s support and noted that Blue Oval executives had a feeling that their chances were pretty good this weekend.

“I think they made a banner up for Sunday in case we do get it for 1001,” Bayne said. “They’re being pretty optimistic here at Michigan since it is their home track.”

Understanding the importance of the track’s proximity to the auto manufacturing hub of Detroit, MIS President Roger Curtis announced that a manufacturer’s trophy will be awarded after each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, beginning with the Pure Michigan 400 on August 18, for the car company that goes to Victory Lane.

Allison acknowledged that winning at MIS held special meaning for Ford.

“We want to show up and compete and win in front of our friends, our neighbors, our employees, the entire network of people who support our company, whether it’s executives, fans, you name it,” Allison said. “It’s an extra level of pride that comes with being here in your hometown.”

Ford’s winning ways began at the beginning of NASCAR as Jim Roper in a Lincoln won the first Strictly Stock, now Sprint Cup Series, race in the sport’s history on June 19, 1949 at the old Charlotte Speedway.

Sixty-four years later, Ford supports11 full-time drivers in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition, five in the Nationwide Series and two in the Camping World Truck Series. Ford competes in all three national series with support of Front Row Motorsports, Germain Racing, Penske Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing and the Wood Brothers. This season, Ford added full-time support of Brad Keselowski Racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

Posted on June 15, 2013 by

A celebration of Leffler’s life set for Wednesday

In honor of NASCAR driver Jason Leffler, who lost his life in a racing accident this week, a trust fund has been established for his five-year-old son, Charlie Dean.

This trust will serve as the official Leffler Family fund, with all monies going directly to Charlie’s needs. Turner Scott Motorsports co-owner Harry Scott Jr., former Braun Racing owner Todd Braun and Steve Overholser, CFO of Great Clips, will serve as trustees.

Donations can be made to The Charlie Dean Leffler Discretionary Trust at:  

The Charlie Dean Leffler Discretionary Trust
 c/o SunTrust Bank 
232 Williamson Road
 Mooresville, NC 28117

A celebration of Jason Leffler’s life will be held on Wednesday, June 19. The service will be at Grace Covenant Church, located at 17301 Statesville Road in Cornelius, N.C. at 1:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Charlie Dean Leffler Discretionary Trust.

Posted on June 14, 2013 by

Junior brimming with confidence at Michigan; other drivers take notice

BROOKLYN, Mich. — The newest installment in the Superman series to make it to the silver screen, “Man of Steel” has endured some mixed reviews heading into its opening weekend, hovering around 60% out of a 100 rating from well-known movie review site RottenTomatoes.com.

As for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 88 Chevrolet, which has a paint scheme inspired by the Last Son of Krypton himself, there’s been nothing but favorable returns from some of the toughest critics in NASCAR — his teammates.

“I thought Junior had a very impressive run last week,” Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon said. “He was very competitive and it was great timing for them because (Michigan International Speedway) is a track that I know he likes and does well at; he did well last year. So, if this is a window of opportunity for him, it’s opening.”

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“He could win here again,” added Kasey Kahne, another teammate. “He was really good here last year and they’re always right there and consistently in the top 10.”

Earnhardt Jr. was one of the fastest drivers in Friday’s opening practice session, his National Guard “Man of Steel” Chevrolet clocking in fifth at 199.922 mph to Kahne’s chart-leading 200.619. He was a little faster in qualifying at 200.100 mph, but ended up placing 12th. Earnhardt shouldn’t take his marginal qualifying position to heart, considering that in his last two races here he finished fourth and first, starting 22nd and 17th, respectively.

“Hopefully (the car is) as fast as it looks good. That is going to be more important to be able to repeat and get the win this weekend,” Earnhardt said. “We feel pretty good coming in to this race.”

The annual expectation ahead of each of the two Michigan races is that Earnhardt will run well at the track, as his average finish of 10.5 at the track in the past eight races ranks among his best. Not many could have predicted that he’d be riding a wave of momentum from the week before, however, following a third-place finish at Pocono.

The fact that Earnhardt now sits in fourth place in the Sprint Cup standings is impressive. After all, he had not a single top-five finish in all of April and May following three in the first five races.

“We had a great run last week that sort of hopefully got us back in the right direction,” Earnhardt said. “We started the season off so promising, the best that I had ever started a season. It just seemed like things were going so perfectly and it’s the way it is in this sport. You will think you have everything going in the right direction and then odds and fate and everything else got in the way.”

While Earnhardt is currently in no danger of missing the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, a win at Michigan is almost a necessity to ensure he stays near the top of the standings. He and third-place Clint Bowyer are the only two drivers in the top eight without a win. Meanwhile, some of Bowyer’s best tracks — Sonoma and New Hampshire, two tracks where Earnhardt struggles — are on the horizon.

“We feel like we are coming through a stretch of races and race tracks, if you take out Sonoma, that we should run pretty well at and have a lot of confidence at,” said Earnhardt. “Not that we won’t go to Sonoma and hope to run well, we will, but the track record (13 starts, no top-10 finishes) speaks for itself there.”

Perhaps there’s a little extra jolt that comes along with racing at one of his favorite tracks, but Earnhardt appears rejuvenated and ready to make a summer run as he tries to secure his first Sprint Cup championship. Now 38 years old, he isn’t surprised that there is concern over his age and his motivation after 15 years of Cup racing, but he’s as determined as ever.

“I feel like I have good energy. I’m not burning out,” said Earnhardt. “I think that the passion and the commitment probably goes before the physical end of it goes in this particular sport. I feel like I’m in the best opportunity of my career. There is a ‘seize the moment’ kind of feeling because I’m in such good equipment around such good people.

“We want to win more races. We want to win numerous races and multiple races in a season. We want that to be the status quo. We want that to be the norm.”

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Posted on June 14, 2013 by

Death of friend Leffler casts pall over weekend

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Averaging a fourth-place finish over the past three weeks of racing, which includes his first win of 2013 and his re-insertion into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup picture, by all means Tony Stewart should have had a noticeable spring in his step when he set foot in the media center at Michigan International Speedway on Friday afternoon.

The pep was missing, but who could blame him?

In addition to crashing his car in the opening practice session Friday morning and being forced to go to a backup, Stewart had to swallow the tough reality that his close friend and former roommate Jason Leffler had passed away Wednesday from injuries sustained in a sprint-car racing accident at Bridgeport Speedway, a dirt track in Swedesboro, N.J.

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“I’ve known Jason a long time; we grew up racing together,” Stewart said. “I knew him as a friend, as a roommate, as a teammate. I know that he loved nothing more than being behind the wheel of a race car. He was a racer; he didn’t care what he raced, when he raced. That’s all he wanted to do was be in a race car, and it was fun to have a roommate like that. It’s just a reminder of how dangerous our sport is.”

The news of Leffler’s passing was a sobering notice that despite the advancements the sport has introduced to maintain safety for everyone involved at the track, accidents can happen.

“We’ve had a lot of safety innovations over the last 15 years since I’ve been in Cup,” Stewart said. “It’s just proof that I don’t know that they’ll ever get to the stage where anybody is totally immune to getting hurt in a race car. It’s the scenario that we’re in and there isn’t anybody that gets behind the wheel that doesn’t know that going in.”

The situation that the driver of the No. 14 Chevrolet and his team now find themselves in with unexpectedly having to mourn the loss of a friend will make it difficult to focus on the task at hand, as a visibly shaken Stewart focused most of his press conference on honoring the memory of Leffler. However, the fact remains that Stewart has momentum on his side right now and can’t afford to take his foot off the gas, as a nine-race stretch from Las Vegas to Darlington without a top-10 put him in a deep hole.

“I feel like our organization is gaining on it. I’ve been really encouraged the last couple of weeks and the last three weeks we’ve made big gains,” said the three-time Sprint Cup champion. “Until I had the problem today, we were third on the sheet at the time that I crashed the car, so I feel encouraged that we’re gaining ground on it and starting to get back to form.”

He was 62 points out of 10th place in the points standings after a 15th-place finish at Darlington, but a seventh-place finish at Charlotte, a victory at Dover and a fourth-place finish last week at Pocono have him just 17 points out of that crucial spot. Despite having just one win at Michigan that came 13 years ago, Stewart does fare reasonably well here, with 19 top-10s in 28 starts. It’s also just one of five tracks that he has double-digit top-fives (11).

“This weekend I was really anxious to get on track to see where we were. The last two weeks, we had the advantage of having tests at Pocono and Dover but we didn’t do that for here, so I wanted to see how we’d come out of the box here,” Stewart said. “I was pretty encouraged by what I was seeing so far during the day, so I feel like we’re gaining on it. I don’t know where we need to be yet, but we definitely have made big gains so I’m pretty encouraged by that.”

Stewart ended up 35thon the leaderboard for the opening practice, with a best speed of 194.963 mph. After wrecking his first car, he spent the rest of the session focusing on figuring out how to get around the corners.

“I think as the session went on, the track got more grip to it. Pretty slippery at the beginning ‘til it started getting some rubber on the track,” he said. “It seems that watching the times, obviously we had a problem and I got loose and caught (the wall) then just ran the race track trying to get around the corner it seemed the longer the session went, the better the track got.”

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Posted on June 14, 2013 by Staff Report

Dillon’s fast lap earns right to roll off last in Coors Light Pole Qualifying

As the fastest of three cars to crack 190 mph in the one and only NASCAR Nationwide Series practice at Michigan International Speedway on Friday, Austin Dillon will roll off last in Coors Light Pole Qualifying on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. ET on ESPN2. Dillon turned a lap at 190.789 mph, nearly half a mile an hour faster than his track record.

Track Qualifying Record: Austin Dillon 06/16/12 37.8201 190.375

#   Car   Driver   Team
1   15   * Carl Long   RWR Ford
2   74   * Juan Carlos Blum #   Oleofino’s Chevrolet
3   00   * Ken Butler III   JW Demolition Toyota
4   52   * Joey Gase   Donate Life Chevrolet
5   23   Scott Riggs(i)   Rick Ware Racing Ford
6   14   Eric McClure   Hefty/Reynolds Toyota
7   24   Blake Koch   VIP Poker Toyota
8   46   * JJ Yeley(i)   Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet
9   4   Landon Cassill   Flex Seal Chevrolet
10   01   Mike Wallace   Brooklyn Products International Chevrolet
11   42   * Josh Wise   Curtis Key Plumbing Chevrolet
12   40   Reed Sorenson   E-Swisher.com Chevrolet
13   51   Jeremy Clements   Diamond Pistons Chevrolet
14   10   * Jeff Green   TriStar Motorsports Toyota
15   87   Joe Nemechek   AM/FM Energy Wood & Pellet Stoves Toyota
16   44   Cole Whitt   Takagi Tankless Water Heaters Toyota
17   79   Jeffrey Earnhardt #   Uponor Ford
18   19   Mike Bliss   TriStar Motorsports Toyota
19   92   * Dexter Stacey #   Maddie’s Place Ford
20   11   Elliott Sadler   OneMain Financial Toyota
21   20   Brian Vickers   Dollar General Toyota
22   16   * Chris Buescher   Ford EcoBoost Ford
23   22   Joey Logano(i)   Discount Tire Ford
24   70   Johanna Long   Foretravel Chevrolet
25   43   Michael Annett   Pilot Travel Centers Ford
26   30   Nelson Piquet Jr. #   Worx Chevrolet
27   12   Sam Hornish Jr.   Alliance Truck Parts Ford
28   6   Trevor Bayne   Roush CleanTech Ford
29   7   Regan Smith   TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet
30   54   Kyle Busch(i)   Monster Energy Toyota
31   60   Travis Pastrana   Roush Fenway Racing Ford
32   99   Alex Bowman #   St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Toyota
33   32   Kyle Larson #   Cessna Chevrolet
34   5   Brad Sweet   Great Clips Chevrolet
35   77   Parker Kligerman   Bandit Chippers Toyota
36   2   Brian Scott   Shore Lodge Chevrolet
37   33   Paul Menard(i)   Menards/Rheem Chevrolet
38   31   Justin Allgaier   Brandt Chevrolet
39   3   Austin Dillon   AdvoCare Chevrolet
* Required to qualify on time, (i) Ineligible for driver points in this series

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Staff Report

Gordon first, Mears last in qualifying runs for the Quicken Loans 400

#	Car	Driver	Team
1	24	Jeff Gordon	Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet
2	16	Greg Biffle	3M/Give Kids a Smile Ford
3	15	Clint Bowyer	5-hour Energy Toyota
4	20	Matt Kenseth	Home Depot Husky Toyota
5	18	Kyle Busch	M&M’s Toyota
6	99	Carl Edwards	Fastenal Ford
7	30	David Stremme	Widow Wax Toyota
8	2	Brad Keselowski	Miller Lite Ford
9	10	Danica Patrick #	GoDaddy Chevrolet
10	51	Bobby Labonte	Phoenix Construction Services Chevrolet
11	56	Martin Truex Jr.	NAPA Auto Parts Toyota
12	44	Scott Riggs	No Label Ford
13	55	Mark Martin	Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota
14	43	Aric Almirola	Eckrich Ford
15	98	Michael McDowell	Phil Parsons Racing Ford
16	42	Juan Pablo Montoya	Target Chevrolet
17	35	Josh Wise(i)	MDS Transport Ford
18	14	Tony Stewart	Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet
19	7	Dave Blaney	SANY Chevrolet
20	87	Joe Nemechek(i)	Belle Tire Toyota
21	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	National Guard/Man of Steel Chevrolet
22	21	Trevor Bayne(i)	Motorcraft/Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford
23	22	Joey Logano	Shell Pennzoil Ford
24	9	Marcos Ambrose	Stanley Ford
25	48	Jimmie Johnson	Lowe’s Chevrolet
26	5	Kasey Kahne	Farmers Insurance Chevrolet
27	34	David Ragan	Taco Bell Ford
28	19	Mike Bliss(i)	Plinker Tactical Toyota
29	1	Jamie McMurray	McDonald’s Chevrolet
30	33	Austin Dillon(i)	American Ethanol Chevrolet
31	36	JJ Yeley	Chevrolet
32	93	Travis Kvapil	Burger King/Dr.Pepper Toyota
33	47	AJ Allmendinger	Charter Toyota
34	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr. #	Zest Ford
35	29	Kevin Harvick	Budweiser Chevrolet
36	83	David Reutimann	Burger King/Dr.Pepper Toyota
37	11	Denny Hamlin	FedEx Express Toyota
38	38	David Gilliland	Long John Silver’s Ford
39	27	Paul Menard	Menards/CertainTeed Chevrolet
40	39	Ryan Newman	Quicken Loans Chevrolet
41	78	Kurt Busch	Furniture Row/Sealy Chevrolet
42	31	Jeff Burton	Caterpillar Chevrolet
43	32	Ken Schrader	Federated Auto Parts Ford
44	13	Casey Mears	GEICO Ford

* Required to qualify on time, (i) Ineligible for driver points in this series

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Posted on June 14, 2013 by Staff Report

Three drivers top 190 mph in practice session

Austin Dillon led the first and final NASCAR Nationwide Series practice at Michigan International Speedway with a lap time of 37.738 seconds, or 190.789 mph.

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It capped a great day of practice runs for Dillon, who is also driving the No. 33 Chevrolet for the Circle Sport team owned by Joe Falk in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. In the Sprint Cup Series practice just prior to the Nationwide Series practice, Dillon posted the 10th-fastest time.

All told, Dillon was one of three drivers to top the 190-mph mark during Nationwide practice.

The other two were second-place Justin Allgaier (190.688) and third-place Paul Menard (190.134).

The top 10 of Friday’s session had multiple drivers who have not yet competed in a Nationwide Series race at the 2-mile facility.

Among them: Parker Kligerman (fifth, 189.818), Kyle Larson (seventh, 189.8710 mph), Alex Bowman (eighth, 189.001 mph) and Travis Pastrana (188.887 mph).

Brian Scott (189.858 mph) was fourth Friday to complete the top five.

Also in the top 10: Brad Sweet (sixth, 189.514 mph) and Kyle Busch (10th, 188.635).

Series points leader Regan Smith was 11th with a speed of 188.585 mph.

The nearly two-hour practice session was Friday’s only action on the track for the Nationwide Series in advance of Saturday’s Alliance Truck Parts 250 (2 p.m. ET, ABC).

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