Average Practice Speeds: Kansas – STP 400

This weekend at Kansas, the practice schedule was a little more rational than the one in Texas last week. There were two practice sessions on Friday afternoon. The first was one hour and 20 minutes long and Happy Hour was an hour and a half. There were many cars that sandbagged in first practice to get an early qualifying draw, which will happen on Saturday at noon Eastern time. As I said in my Preview earlier this week, in the 12 total Sprint Cup races ran here at Kansas Speedway, the pole winner averages a finish of 12.1 and 42.5% of the top 10 qualifiers in those races also finished there.

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ATTENTION: The NASCAR.com Live Leaderboard had some technical difficulties with the Happy Hour speeds. Fifteen drivers were missing and I have no way of getting their average speeds unless NASCAR.com updates their page, which I will continue to monitor. Below you will find three different average speeds charts: those who I have data for both practices, those who I have just for first practice, and the go-or-go-homers. Sorry for the inconvenience, but if you know anything about NASCAR.com, this shouldn’t be surprising.

Important Practice Notes: Joey Logano blew his engine without even completing a lap to start off first practice and didn’t get back on the track until Happy Hour. He will start from the back of the field in Sunday’s race. Soon after, Kurt Busch spun coming off of turn four. There wasn’t a whole bunch of damage to the #51, though. In Happy Hour, Tony Stewart was in the wall for the second week in a row, although this time the team didn’t bring out the back-up car.

In the first practice session, the five fastest drivers were:
1. Kyle Busch – 173.728 mph
2. Carl Edwards – 172.900 mph
3. Kasey Kahne – 172.546 mph
4. Landon Cassill – 172.469 mph
5. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – 172.276 mph
Click here for the complete results from this practice.

In terms of ten-lap average, the top five for first practice were:
1. Kyle Busch – 169.301 mph
2. Tony Stewart – 169.156 mph
3. Jeff Gordon – 167.381 mph
4. Jamie McMurray – 166.579 mph
5. A.J. Allmendinger – 166.330 mph
Click here for the complete ten-lap average chart for practice one.

In “Happy Hour”, the fast five were:
1. Jimmie Johnson – 174.955 mph
2. Mark Martin – 174.317 mph
3. Martin Truex, Jr. – 173.801 mph
4. Greg Biffle – 173.310 mph
5. Denny Hamlin – 172.883 mph
Click here for the complete results from this practice.

When it came to ten-lap average, the best for Happy Hour were:
1. Kasey Kahne – 168.565 mph
2. Mark Martin – 168.272 mph
3. Carl Edwards – 168.240 mph
4. Matt Kenseth – 168.165 mph
5. Jimmie Johnson – 167.916 mph
Click here for the complete ten-lap average chart for Happy Hour.

 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. I have found over the years that this is much more accurate as to whether or not someone has a car that is good for one lap or one that can consistently be fast. These numbers, however, can be skewed if a team puts new tires on frequently or rarely changes the tires.

Drivers With Data From Both Sessions:

Drivers With Data From Just First Practice:

 Go-or-Go-Homers’ Average Speeds: