Practice Breakdown: Talladega (Aaron’s 499)

Two practice sessions were held this afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway and qualifying will be tomorrow at 11:30 am Eastern Time. After the starting lineup is set, the cars won’t see the track again until the drop of the green flag on Sunday afternoon. As I said in my preview, practice speeds are never important at superspeedways, so use the following practice breakdown any way you want (if at all). The winner will be the one that is in the right place at the right time on the final lap, so not necessarily the best car will win the race on Sunday afternoon.

Important Practice Notes: The main concern during practices on Friday was the rain. Other than that, no wrecks. Final practice ended just minutes after it started because of the weather and only eight drivers got on track.

First practice shook out like this:
1. Tony Stewart – 194.239 mph
2. Ryan Newman – 194.235 mph
3. Kyle Busch – 193.713 mph
4. Jimmie Johnson – 193.713 mph
5. A.J. Allmendinger – 193.080 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. Ryan Newman – 189.825 mph
2. Tony Stewart – 189.785 mph
3. Denny Hamlin – 189.736 mph
4. Joey Logano – 189.694 mph
5. Kevin Harvick – 188.732 mph

The top five drivers in the second practice session were:
1. Jeff Gordon – 190.412 mph
2. Mark Martin – 190.412 mph
3. Travis Kvapil – 175.102 mph
4. Denny Hamlin – 158.344 mph
5. Joey Logano – 156.786 mph
Complete rankings of this practice can be found by clicking here.

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. I’m basically posting this just so I can use it for my results breakdown. I doubt that these practice speeds will mean much on Sunday.

1. Kyle Busch at 184.238 mph over 32 laps
2. Ryan Newman at 184.112 mph over 15 laps
3. Joey Logano at 183.977 mph over 23 laps
4. Kurt Busch at 183.813 mph over 25 laps
5. Carl Edwards at 183.615 mph over 18 laps
6. Brad Keselowski at 183.397 mph over 18 laps
7. Clint Bowyer at 183.102 mph over 16 laps
8. Greg Biffle at 183.079 mph over 21 laps
9. Denny Hamlin at 183.031 mph over 24 laps
10. David Ragan at 182.620 mph over 17 laps
11. Marcos Ambrose at 182.522 mph over 17 laps
12. Jimmie Johnson at 182.159 mph over 26 laps
13. Trevor Bayne at 182.095 mph over 33 laps
14. David Reutimann at 181.624 mph over 27 laps
15. David Gilliland at 180.828 mph over 17 laps
16. Tony Stewart at 180.055 mph over 20 laps
17. Mark Martin at 179.938 mph over 25 laps
18. Jeff Gordon at 179.841 mph over 25 laps
19. Brian Vickers at 179.653 mph over 32 laps
20. Landon Cassill at 179.470 mph over 15 laps
21. Bobby Labonte at 179.329 mph over 13 laps
22. Martin Truex, Jr. at 179.001 mph over 17 laps
23. Regan Smith at 178.800 mph over 21 laps
24. Matt Kenseth at 178.634 mph over 27 laps
25. Casey Mears at 178.616 mph over 18 laps
26. A.J. Allmendinger at 177.767 mph over 17 laps
27. Kevin Harvick at 175.392 mph over 24 laps
28. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at 175.375 mph over 14 laps
29. Kasey Kahne at 175.216 mph over 23 laps
30. Terry Labonte at 174.760 mph over 18 laps
31. Bill Elliott at 174.695 mph over 18 laps
32. Paul Menard at 174.414 mph over 14 laps
33. Robby Gordon at 173.231 mph over 16 laps
34. Mike Skinner at 167.488 mph over 4 laps
35. Tony Raines at 166.840 mph over 3 laps
36. Steve Park at 166.405 mph over 7 laps
37. Juan Montoya at 166.093 mph over 3 laps
38. Joe Nemechek at 166.076 mph over 3 laps
39. Travis Kvapil at 166.070 mph over 10 laps
40. Dave Blaney at 165.914 mph over 3 laps
41. Michael Waltrip at 165.888 mph over 10 laps
42. Jamie McMurray at 165.815 mph over 7 laps
43. Andy Lally at 165.060 mph over 3 laps
44. Jeff Burton at 161.594 mph over 15 laps
45. Kevin Conway at 158.021 mph over 2 laps
46. Michael McDowell at 156.215 mph over 1 lap