Average Practice Speeds: Indianapolis – Curtiss Shaver 400 at the Brickyard

The schedule this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a little different than normal, probably due to the fact that the Nationwide Series will race on the same track for the first time. There were two practice sessions on Saturday morning and qualifying is later this afternoon  on ESPN (2:00 pm Eastern). It’s real hard to pass at this track so where you start is super important.

Important Practice Notes: In first practice, Matt Kenseth hit the wall, but the damage was just cosmetic and minor. Same story with Aric Almirola. In Happy Hour, Carl Edwards also scraped the wall but it was barely noticeable.

With this track being so large, very few teams ran any runs of at least ten consecutive laps in practice. Since five-lap averages aren’t released, that makes average practice speeds even more beneficial. All you need is an ifantasyrace membership for full access–click here to sign up and don’t forget to use discount code “Indy” for 25% off a monthly pass.

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.

In the first practice (on Friday), the drivers with the fastest times were:
1. Kasey Kahne – 185.326 mph
2. Mark Martin – 183.520 mph
3. Jeff Gordon – 183.292 mph
4. Jimmie Johnson – 183.135 mph
5. Brad Keselowski – 182.916 mph
Click here for the complete results from this practice.

In “Happy Hour”, the fast five were:
1. Greg Biffle – 181.499 mph
2. Carl Edwards – 181.232 mph
3. Joey Logano – 181.189 mph
4. Kasey Kahne – 180.999 mph
5. Matt Kenseth – 180.988 mph
Click here for the complete results from this practice.

When it came to ten-lap average, the best for Happy Hour were:
1. Kyle Busch – 177.134 mph
2. Brad Keselowski – 175.790 mph
3. Martin Truex, Jr. – 175.314 mph
4. Jeff Burton – 175.082 mph
5. Paul Menard – 174.894 mph
Click here for the complete ten-lap average chart for Happy Hour.