DFS NASCAR: O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 Practice Notes

Final Practice For O’Reilly Auto Parts 500

Texas Motor Speedway

Saturday, March 30 11:30 am ET

50 minutes in length

Weather

A bit of overcast clouds. 49-degree Air Temp with 24 MPH winds out of the NW

Penalized Drivers

Erik Jones (15 minutes at the end of practice for failing inspection twice)

Top-20 Speeds (single lap)

Best Lap Averages

Items of Note:

• In the beginning of practice, the drivers are practicing pit road speeds to make sure they have their dash lights dialed in properly
• Two minutes into practice there was fluid on the back stretch which brought out the red flag briefly.
• Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace got into each other just a touch in Turns 1 and 2 but very little damage was done or noticeable. Wallace says his car was bouncing through the front stretch.
• Jimmie Johnson says his car is very bouncy over the bumps in Turn 3. He brought it back to the garage for some adjustments. He’s typically done well on Sunday when Friday goes well, but it’s been a while for that still.
• Kyle Busch had to run straight from Xfinity driver’s meeting to Cup practice and they are still looking to fix the bounciness in the car that they had on Friday as well. He didn’t get to talk to Adam Stevens (his Crew Chief) before practice, but that’s not a huge deal.
• Most of the early runs in practice are being done on the bottom of the track will driving single-file in a draft.
• Kevin Harvick is in the middle of a long run and his fastest lap of the session, with 35 minutes left, came on the 13^th lap of the 16 laps run to that point in the run.
• Ty Dillon is a bit tight in the first two turns but is solid in Turns 3 & 4 and able to hold it wide open in that end of the track.
• Brad Keselowski is starting to get up to the higher lines and is up in the traction compound and is really the first one to noticeably go higher.
• Kyle Larson didn’t take long to go higher than Keselowski and is up into the second groove. His spotter said that his car looks good no matter where they run on the track or what end they’re at on the track.
• With 22 minutes left in the session a big racing group has broken out with drafting and multiple lanes of racing happening.
• Martin Truex Jr. has looked like one of the stronger long run cars in this session. He made a good run on the 22-car in the corner and then had to check up because he couldn’t get around him.
• Chris Buescher has been in the tire tracks Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr. in the long runs in the mid part of the session.
• Kurt Busch has consistently been in the top-10 in the speed charts in this session and until last week had the only top-five finishes for Chevy this season.
• Kyle Busch is still trying to make adjustments to his car in race trim with 15 minutes left in the session.
• Ryan Blaney has a confidence coming here with two top-fives in last year’s races at Texas and three straight top-five finishes this season.
• Erik Jones made an adjustment to entering the corner to find more speed in the corners and it worked well in his last run with being P2 on the charts before having to pull off the track for the penalty.
• With 10 minutes left in the session, there was a pack that was really racing and even went three-wide for most of a lap.
• A 16-car pack formed with eight minutes left in the session to try and see what the cars have when racing near each other in multiple grooves.
• Kurt Busch has the best five-lap, 10-lap, 15-lap, and 20-lap average in this session with five minutes left. Aric Almriola, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, and Matt DiBenedetto are also high on those lists.
• Kevin Harvick got loose heading into Turn 1 and had to check up but that is the riskiest spot on the track in the transition from the flat straightaway to the banking of the first turn.
• There is very little tire fall off right now and some of the fastest laps run by drivers came later in the longer runs of this session.
• With less than a minute left in practice, Jimmie Johnson took over the lead in all consecutive lap average categories from five, to 10, to 15, to 20.
• Denny Hamlin was just trying to get balance right in this session and was drafting with pack to see what he had. He said once you’re in clean air you can take off and go.
• Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch led the averages and speed charts in the last 20 minutes of practice after the track had warmed up and rubbered up. That’s according to Jeff Gordon on the FS1 broadcast.

Through Final Practice

Second Practice For O'Reilly Auto Parts 500

The second practice (scheduled for 9:05 am ET Saturday March 30) was cancelled due to overnight rain and wet track conditions.

First Practice For O’Reilly Auto Parts 500

Texas Motor Speedway

Friday, March 29 3:00 pm ET

50 minutes in length

Weather

Air Temp 70 degrees I Track Temp 76 degrees I Winds at 19 mph SW

Penalized Drivers

No drivers were penalized in this session

Top-20 Speeds (single lap)

Best Lap Averages

No driver ran 10-consecutive laps

Items of Note:

• There was rubber laid down from the Truck practice on Thursday in the lower groove and then in the upper groove, it’s a combo of the Tire Dragon and the grip compound on the track.
• The cars aren’t going to be able to run wide open in the first two turns of the track but should run wide open in Turns 3 & 4.
• This is the third time this season that this particular aero package is being used but the fourth time the 550-horsepower package is being used overall.
• The cars are going faster in the center of the corners with the new package but slower down the straightaways.
• Most drivers will be in qualifying trim for the entire session this practice.
• Just under 40 minutes left in the session and there are coordinated efforts for drafting in the q-trim with the drivers leading the drafts not feeling the benefits of them.
• Bubba Wallace is trying to find the balance in his car right now. The balance is bad in the car especially in corner entry but it might be due to the wind blowing straight down the backstretch.
• Ryan Newman got a bit loose in Turns 3 & 4 as he got into the traction compound that hadn’t been warmed up yet.
• Some of the cars are skewed in the opposite direction as we’d expected to see aka the rear end is skewed to the right to get the spoiler a bit out of the wind.
• Cars that were able to stay 7-8 car lengths behind the car in front of them were really the ones able to gain the most speed from the draft.
• With 21 minutes left to go, 36 of the 39 cars have been on track for mock qualifying runs.
• Ryan Blaney says his car is too loose and he can’t tell where the traction compound is on the track with all the rubber that was dragged on it.
• Kevin Harvick said the car was bouncy on the first run when he was running by himself. They changed the shocks but are still looking for a partner for the draft.
• With 11 minutes to go in the session, a mass of cars gathered at the end of pit road to make mock qualifying runs and practice the new qualifying lineup procedures.
• The big group was experimenting with how close to other cars you want to get to get the best time
• A mix of manufacturers were in the second group of mock runs with eight minutes left in the session led by Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Blaney and Alex Bowman.
• Ty Dillon says in dirty air his car needs more grip in the corners and it’s down on the splitter
• Joey Logano says the car can be driving him as opposed him driving the car at some points of the track.
• William Byron got very loose heading into Turn 1 as the track makes the transition from the flatter front stretch to the banked Turn 1.