Austin Dillon and Richard Childress Racing led a long line of Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE’s in the NASCAR Cup Series’ only practice session ahead of Sunday Evening’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, putting down a flying lap of 29.845 seconds | 180.934mph around the 1.5-mile facility.
In the series’ 50-minute practice session, Chevrolet claimed each of the top-four positions on the speed charts, as well as eight of the top-10 fastest lap times.
The 2017 Coca-Cola 600 winner led Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson, with Erik Jones and Joey Logano rounding out the top-five. More impressive, is that Jones’ lap was run in race trim, whereas the top-three drivers all sealed their cars up and went into qualifying trim in advance of tomorrow’s qualifying session.
Daniel Suarez, Tyler Reddick, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, William Byron and Kyle Busch rounded out the top-10. NASCAR Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin clocked-in the 11th fastest lap time of the session at 179.181mph – about three tenths of a second from session leader Austin Dillon.
For the Stewart-Haas Racing camp, it appears that the struggles will continue into Memorial Day Weekend, with Kevin Harvick posting the fastest time of the four cars in 17th, with Cole Custer 21st, Aric Almirola 24th and Chase Briscoe in 26th.
All 38 cars that will attempt the series’ longest race of the season made a lap in the session and put laps down within 2.5-seconds from the fastest car (A. Dillon) to the slowest car (D. Starr).
