Last year, Martin Truex Jr. had to take a points provisional in order to take the green flag in the 150-lap Busch Light Clash. This season, he’s leading the sole practice session for the second annual event at the LA Memorial Coliseum.
Truex, who returns to Joe Gibbs Racing for another full-time season in the No. 19 Toyota Camry TRD, led the 36-driver field in the multi-group, multi-run practice session on Saturday evening.
With a lap time of 13.361 seconds (67.630mph) around the purpose-built quarter-mile facility, Truex led the session over fellow Toyota Racing driver Bubba Wallace, who clocked in second, one-hundredth of a second behind the session leader.
Chase Briscoe – who found the outside wall in the closing minutes of his practice group, after major contact with AJ Allmendinger – clocked in third place for Stewart-Haas Racing. Alex Bowman and Ryan Blaney completed the top five in practice.
Ty Gibbs, Ross Chastain, Denny Hamlin, Todd Gilliland, and Justin Haley rounded out the top-10 in the opening NASCAR Cup Series practice session of the season, at the LA Memorial Coliseum.
Gibbs, who is competing for Rookie of The Year honors this season, saw his No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry TRD burst into flames in the early portion of the practice session. Despite missing the majority of the session, Gibbs clocked in sixth.
Each driver was given the opportunity to make laps around the LA Memorial Coliseum in groups, with each group receiving three eight-minute sessions to make as many laps as they pleased around the quarter-mile track.
Tyler Reddick, who makes his on-track debut for 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series, completed the most laps in his No. 45 Toyota Camry TRD throughout the broken-up session, at 117.
Reddick’s teammate, Bubba Wallace, was the fastest driver over the course of 10-lap averages, with Chase Briscoe, Martin Truex Jr, Ryan Blaney, and Todd Gilliland rounding out the top five in that particular metric.
Full results from Busch Light Clash Practice:
