DFS NASCAR: Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race Practice Notes

Final Practice for Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race

Bristol Motor Speedway

Friday, August 17th 12:30 am ET

65 minutes in length

Weather

82 degrees I 7 mph winds I Feels like 87 degrees I Partly Cloudy

Penalized Drivers

No drivers were penalized for this session

Top-20 Speeds (one lap)

Best Lap Averagess

Items of Note:

• Denny Hamlin said he ran the top groove in the opening practice because the PJ1 eats the tires and they didn’t want to eat the tires. He will do a mock qualifying run late in the session.
• Ryan Blaney is planning on doing a couple of long runs to see how the car does when the track gets rubbered.
• Kevin Harvick is the first one to go to the top with 58 minutes left in the session and is 18 laps into the run.
• Ricky Stenhouse Jr. feels like it’s a must win situation this week being 62 points behind 16th place and his recent performance here with four top-fives in the last 10 and six top-10s. They are going to make aggressive pit calls and car setup decisions.
• Brad Keselowski was curious about other drivers lines through the middle of the corners with 50 minutes left in the session.
• Kyle Larson was the first driver to enter high in the corner and drive off in the bottom groove but he is also running two different lines at either end of the track with the low line in Turns 1 & 2 and the high line in Turns 3 & 4.
• With 41 minutes left, Bubba Wallace brushed the wall a bit and rubbed the right rear wheel hub against it.
• Alex Bowman said his drive is more comfortable at the top of the track than the bottom of the track.
• Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Larson both have cars that actually get faster 40-50 laps into a run in race trim and with 30 minutes left in the session they are going to full on qualifying trim to make a mock q run.
• With 25 minutes left in practice most cars are switching to qualifying trim with qualifying being very important for track position and pit selection here.
• Kyle Larson has bumped the wall coming out of Turn 4 twice with in several laps of each other.
• Kasey Kahne has run the seventh best single lap in this session in qualifying trim
• With 3 minutes left Aric Almirola ran the best mock Q trim at 15.19 but Kyle Busch beat that with a 15.14 shortly after.

Opening Practice for Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race

Bristol Motor Speedway

Friday, August 17th 10:30 am ET

90 minutes in length

Weather

78 degrees I Winds at 8 mph I Feels like 78 degrees I Partly Cloudy

Penalized Drivers

No drivers were penalized this session

Top-20 Speeds (one lap)

Best Lap Averages

Items of Note:

• Both sessions will be useful to learn stuff this week since the track temps will be similar to temps for the race on Saturday night.
• PJ1 is in both grooves and setup like it was in the spring race just a bit narrower on top and not quite as long as it was in the spring race.
• Aric Almirola says he doesn’t think the top groove will come in during practice but the cars have to be good in both grooves for the race since the groove moves around based on the flow of the race.
• Kyle Larson says that Bristol is his favorite race track by far and in the last three races he’s led the most laps in the field. Larson will likely go to the top of the track and work in that groove for the race even if it gives up some lap time in practice.
• Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is letting some other guys go out first because they probably have too much practice time for the amount of tires they have to use.
• Several teams are doing pit road speeds 12 minutes into the session with the pit road speed being 30 mph. Pit Road is also different under green than caution in that you can enter from either entrance under green but under caution its one long pit road. There were six speeding penalties in each of the last couple races here.
• With an hour left in the session William Byron and Alex Bowman were the first cars on the track and did a handful of laps each. Bowman said his car is a bit free and needs to roll through the corners a bit better.
• Kasey Kahne and Michael McDowell were racing each other for a few laps on their first trip on the track. When Kahne got close to the bumper of McDowell there was a noticeable wiggle in Kahne’s car.
• Joey Logano has won two of the last four night races here and likes to run a different line than most guys do by entering high in the corner and then cutting down to the bottom in the center of the turn.
• Denny Hamlin ran nine or 10 laps around the top groove of the track and his time dropped each lap. But the top groove was .4 seconds slower than the bottom groove.
• Kyle Busch is driving both grooves in practice to see how the balance is on both and what needs to adjusted.
• Alex Bowman slid out of the groove at the bottom of Turn 1 with 42 minutes left in the session and said on the radio he’s still free in.
• Trevor Bayne is in the 6-car this week and is a Knoxville, TN native
• Denny Hamlin says his splitter was hitting the track in the middle of Turns 1 & 2 and sending him up the track about 1 foot.
• Kurt Busch got very loose coming out of Turn 4 with 35 minutes left in practice
• William Byron tried a different package coming here but the fall off was too quick as compared to the spring race and so they will make some adjustments to help the long run speed though the balance is nice.
• Ryan Blaney was trying to find what his car would do in the top groove when he got loose near the wall but didn’t hit it with 25 minutes left.
• A lot of cars have been struggling with loose in but that’s to be expected here as is tight in the center and not rolling through the turns.
• A lot more cars are trying the top groove late in practice with Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Daniel Suarez are some of the bigger names working it in.
• In his last run of the session, Kevin Harvick said it was his worst one and there was no front end whatsoever in the car.