Average Practice Speeds: Richmond – Capital City 400

Well, this week the practice speeds may not be as helpful as we would like. The Capital City 400 is set to start around 7:45 pm on Saturday night, and the two practice sessions were held in the heat of the afternoon (first practice started at noon, Happy Hour at 2:30). Qualifying will be held later today. Once again the lap tracker was being a piece of junk in Happy Hour, and there were 8 big-name drivers missing.

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Important Practice Notes: In the first practice session, Jimmie Johnson scraped the wall a bit. There wasn’t any major damage in my eyes. Later in that session, Paul Menard hit the wall when his “throttle broke” (his words). He brought out the red flag and the team immediately brought out the backup car. Even more concerning was that when he got the second car back out there, it did the exact same thing. Also in the first practice, Clint Bowyer came off the track and was smoking. The team said it was a power steering fluid issue. In between the two practice sessions, Kevin Harvick‘s team changed the transmission in the #29 Chevrolet. In Happy Hour, Marcos Ambrose scraped the wall. There wasn’t a great amount of damage.

In the first practice session, the five fastest drivers were:
1. Mark Martin – 126.707 mph
2. Greg Biffle – 126.186 mph
3. Paul Menard – 126.139 mph
4. Clint Bowyer – 126.133 mph
5. Joey Logano – 125.997 mph
Click here for the complete results from this practice.

In terms of ten-lap average, the top five for first practice were:
1. Matt Kenseth – 122.047 mph
2. Clint Bowyer – 121.713 mph
3. Carl Edwards – 121.576 mph
4. Jimmie Johnson – 120.907 mph
5. Bobby Labonte – 120.368 mph
Click here for the complete ten-lap average chart for practice one.

In “Happy Hour”, the fast five were:
1. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. – 123.853 mph
2. Carl Edwards – 123.706 mph
3. Landon Cassill – 123.209 mph
4. Jeff Gordon – 123.113 mph
5. Kyle Busch – 122.783 mph
Click here for the complete results from this practice.

When it came to ten-lap average, the best for Happy Hour were:
1. Mark Martin – 121.302 mph
2. Brad Keselowski – 120.802 mph
3. Clint Bowyer – 120.696 mph
4. Denny Hamlin – 120.651 mph
5. Jimmie Johnson – 120.605 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. Any laps that Paul Menard ran in his primary car and any skewed laps due to his wreck were removed. THOSE MARKED IN RED DID NOT SHOW UP ON THE HAPPY HOUR LAP TRACKER.