Practice Breakdown: Homestead – Ford 400 (Chase Race #10)

Rain messed with the Sprint Cup schedule for the second time in the last month, with both practice sessions being held Saturday morning as opposed to the regularly-scheduled Friday evening.. Qualifying is scheduled to be held later this afternoon (Saturday), but you never know when rain will take that away. If so, Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart will lead the rest of the field to the green for this year’s final race. Be sure to check back this evening for my last post-qualifying Predictions post of the season. It may be a little delayed (Thanksgiving party) but it will go up sometime tonight.

Important Practice Notes: A.J. Allmendinger scraped the wall in first practice but there was no major damage (tweet from his PR guy here).

In the first practice session on Friday, the five fastest drivers were:
1. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – 173.193 mph
2. Carl Edwards – 172.678 mph
3. Matt Kenseth – 172.298 mph
4. Ryan Newman – 172.068 mph
5. Jimmie Johnson – 172.013 mph
Complete rankings of this practice can be found by clicking here.
In terms of ten-lap average, the following were fastest during this practice session:
1. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – 168.517 mph
2. Carl Edwards – 168.115 mph
3. Tony Stewart – 168.018 mph
4. Marcos Ambrose – 166.655 mph
5. Clint Bowyer – 166.650 mph

In the “Happy Hour”, the fast five were:
1. Carl Edwards – 171.038 mph
2. David Ragan – 170.913 mph
3. Cole Whitt – 170.063 mph
4. A.J. Allmendinger – 169.705 mph
5. Landon Cassill – 169.069 mph
Complete rankings of this practice can be found by clicking here.
In terms of ten-lap average, the following were fastest during this practice session:
1. Jeff Gordon – 166.611 mph
2. Clint Bowyer – 166.587 mph
3. Kevin Harvick – 166.357 mph
4. Brad Keselowski – 166.354 mph
5. Matt Kenseth – 166.335 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.

1. David Ragan at 167.210 mph over 44 laps
2. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at 166.973 mph over 55 laps
3. Kasey Kahne at 166.767 mph over 61 laps
4. Carl Edwards at 166.699 mph over 52 laps
5. Juan Montoya at 166.475 mph over 46 laps
6. Clint Bowyer at 166.265 mph over 66 laps
7. Kevin Harvick at 166.201 mph over 70 laps
8. Ryan Newman at 166.146 mph over 60 laps
9. Tony Stewart at 165.984 mph over 82 laps
10. Greg Biffle at 165.954 mph over 72 laps
11. Matt Kenseth at 165.912 mph over 64 laps
12. Kurt Busch at 165.793 mph over 63 laps
13. Marcos Ambrose at 165.770 mph over 61 laps
14. Kyle Busch at 165.737 mph over 72 laps
15. Jeff Gordon at 165.721 mph over 65 laps
16. Jamie McMurray at 165.601 mph over 55 laps
17. David Reutimann at 165.558 mph over 61 laps
18. Denny Hamlin at 165.529 mph over 68 laps
19. Mark Martin at 165.499 mph over 80 laps
20. Landon Cassill at 165.494 mph over 66 laps
21. Brad Keselowski at 165.463 mph over 73 laps
22. Martin Truex, Jr. at 165.370 mph over 66 laps
23. Brian Vickers at 165.362 mph over 77 laps
24. A.J. Allmendinger at 165.138 mph over 71 laps
25. Jimmie Johnson at 165.079 mph over 75 laps
26. Regan Smith at 164.945 mph over 46 laps
27. Paul Menard at 164.940 mph over 88 laps
28. Jeff Burton at 164.888 mph over 81 laps
29. Casey Mears at 164.789 mph over 49 laps
30. Joey Logano at 164.663 mph over 69 laps
31. Bobby Labonte at 164.534 mph over 59 laps
32. Travis Kvapil at 163.494 mph over 53 laps
33. David Gilliland at 163.008 mph over 32 laps
34. T.J. Bell at 162.074 mph over 44 laps
35. Geoffrey Bodine at 159.334 mph over 50 laps

Go-or-Go-Homer’s Average Speeds:

1. Michael McDowell at 168.651 mph over 9 laps
2. Cole Whitt at 168.606 mph over 18 laps
3. J.J. Yeley at 167.668 mph over 21 laps
4. David Stremme at 167.213 mph over 14 laps
5. Joe Nemechek at 167.126 mph over 16 laps
6. Dave Blaney at 166.901 mph over 17 laps
7. Scott Speed at 166.339 mph over 12 laps
8. Mike Bliss at 166.217 mph over 23 laps
9. Mike Skinner at 166.082 mph over 9 laps
10. Reed Sorenson at 165.966 mph over 14 laps
11. Trevor Bayne at 165.847 mph over 34 laps
12. Dennis Setzer at 164.642 mph over 20 laps
13. Grant Enfinger at 161.691 mph over 29 laps