Practice Breakdown: Texas (Samsung Mobile 500)
[tweetmeme source= “ifantasyrace”]The Sprint Cup series took the same (let’s go with…peculiar) schedule as they did last week in Martinsville for the race this week at “The Great American Speedway.” There was a practice session late Thursday afternoon, with the second being held Friday afternoon before qualifying. Once again, the cars won’t churn any laps between qualifying and the drop of the green flag on Saturday night. Generally, practice is very important at Texas, but will that hold true this weekend? I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Below you will find each practice breakdown followed by the average practice speed for each driver in the two sessions combined.
Important Practice Notes: In first practice, Kasey Kahne had a problem starting his car and they thought it might be an engine problem. However, it was just a distributor and it seemed like they got that problem solved.
First practice shook out like this:
1. David Ragan – 185.816 mph
2. Tony Stewart – 185.701 mph
3. Juan Montoya – 185.280 mph
4. Jamie McMurray – 185.230 mph
5. Greg Biffle – 185.128 mph
Complete practice 1 speeds can be found by clicking here.
In terms of ten-lap average, the following were fastest in first practice:
1. Carl Edwards – 179.901 mph
2. Tony Stewart – 179.817 mph
3. Paul Menard – 179.040 mph
4. Jeff Gordon – 177.253 mph
5. Brad Keselowski – 176.309 mph
The top five drivers in the second practice session were:
1. Kasey Kahne – 183.899 mph
2. Paul Menard – 183.892 mph
3. Carl Edwards – 183.755 mph
4. Kurt Busch – 183.692 mph
5. Regan Smith – 183.617 mph
Complete rankings of this practice can be found by clicking here.
The top five drivers in ten-lap average during this session were:
1. Matt Kenseth – 179.422 mph
2. Paul Menard – 179.356 mph
3. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – 178.769 mph
4. Clint Bowyer – 178.755 mph
5. Marcos Ambrose – 178.626 mph
AVERAGE PRACTICE SPEEDS:
Average practice speeds are calculated by taking the average speed of each driver in each practice and multiplying it by the number of laps ran. When you do this for each practice and add the totals together, and then divide by the total number of laps ran, you get an average of their practice speed, instead of just the one lap statistic you see when you look at practice sheets. The order that they are in is the overall average speeds rank of the two sessions combined (as well as their rank in each session overall).
PLEASE NOTE: If you would like specific numbers on each practice (such as laps run), simply send me a tweet. These numbers can be very confusing this week because of how some teams were running qualifying runs and some weren’t.
1. J.J. Yeley at 179.816 mph over 8 laps (5th in first practice, 3rd in second practice)
2. Carl Edwards at 179.495 mph over 47 laps (8th in first practice, 1st in second practice)
3. Joe Nemechek at 178.400 mph over 14 laps (18th in first practice, 5th in second practice)
4. David Ragan at 178.079 mph over 72 laps (21st in first practice, 7th in second practice)
5. Trevor Bayne at 177.857 mph over 70 laps (30th in first practice, 8th in second practice)
6. Juan Montoya at 177.853 mph over 55 laps (6th in first practice, 18th in second practice)
7. Mike Skinner at 177.823 mph over 16 laps (33rd in first practice, 6th in second practice)
8. Marcos Ambrose at 177.819 mph over 69 laps (14th in first practice, 13th in second practice)
9. Michael McDowell at 177.781 mph over 16 laps (34th in first practice, 2nd in second practice)
10. Casey Mears at 177.723 mph over 42 laps (7th in first practice, 28th in second practice)
11. Clint Bowyer at 177.583 mph over 80 laps (15th in first practice, 14th in second practice)
12. Paul Menard at 177.511 mph over 72 laps (23rd in first practice, 9th in second practice)
13. Tony Stewart at 177.404 mph over 115 laps (19th in first practice, 20th in second practice)
14. Greg Biffle at 177.370 mph over 82 laps (29th in first practice, 12th in second practice)
15. A.J. Allmendinger at 177.324 mph over 76 laps (28th in first practice, 15th in second practice)
16. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at 177.269 mph over 86 laps (3rd in first practice, 24th in second practice)
17. David Reutimann at 177.223 mph over 59 laps (10th in first practice, 27th in second practice)
18. Denny Hamlin at 177.087 mph over 86 laps (9th in first practice, 22nd in second practice)
19. Mark Martin at 177.085 mph over 85 laps (26th in first practice, 17th in second practice)
20. Matt Kenseth at 177.063 mph over 88 laps (17th in first practice, 19th in second practice)
21. Ryan Newman at 177.008 mph over 76 laps (31st in first practice, 21st in second practice)
22. Kyle Busch at 176.998 mph over 75 laps (4th in first practice, 26th in second practice)
23. Robby Gordon at 176.997 mph over 33 laps (35th in first practice, 11th in second practice)
24. Kasey Kahne at 176.969 mph over 65 laps (13th in first practice, 25th in second practice)
25. Kevin Harvick at 176.961 mph over 68 laps (11th in first practice, 30th in second practice)
26. Regan Smith at 176.833 mph over 57 laps (12th in first practice, 35th in second practice)
27. Brad Keselowski at 176.782 mph over 70 laps (27th in first practice, 23rd in second practice)
28. Jamie McMurray at 176.763 mph over 91 laps (16th in first practice, 33rd in second practice)
29. Dave Blaney at 176.685 mph over 40 laps (37th in first practice, 16th in second practice)
30. Landon Cassill at 176.680 mph over 73 laps (2nd in first practice, 34th in second practice)
31. Jeff Burton at 176.667 mph over 113 laps (20th in first practice, 32nd in second practice)
32. Brian Vickers at 176.632 mph over 80 laps (25th in first practice, 36th in second practice)
33. Jimmie Johnson at 176.580 mph over 77 laps (1st in first practice, 38th in second practice)
34. Joey Logano at 176.541 mph over 87 laps (24th in first practice, 31st in second practice)
35. David Starr at 176.424 mph over 31 laps (41st in first practice, 4th in second practice)
36. Kurt Busch at 176.383 mph over 100 laps (22nd in first practice, 37th in second practice)
37. Bobby Labonte at 176.299 mph over 60 laps (36th in first practice, 29th in second practice)
38. Martin Truex, Jr. at 176.108 mph over 90 laps (32nd in first practice, in 41st second practice)
39. Jeff Gordon at 175.852 mph over 100 laps (38th in first practice, 39th in second practice)
40. Travis Kvapil at 175.627 mph over 36 laps (39th in first practice, 40th in second practice)
41. David Gilliland at 175.320 mph over 47 laps (40th in first practice, 42nd in second practice)
42. Andy Lally at 174.414 mph over 51 laps (43rd in first practice, 10th in second practice)
43. Ken Schrader at 173.714 mph over 69 laps (42nd in first practice, 43rd in second practice)
44. Tony Raines at 172.216 mph over 41 laps (44th in first practice, 44th in second practice)
