With the second half of the NASCAR Cup Series season getting underway this weekend in Nashville Superspeedway, Toyota is looking to come out of the gate strong, as shown in Friday’s 50-minute practice session.
Tyler Reddick, driving the No. 45 The Big 615/MoneyLion Toyota Camry TRD, posted his quickest time late in the session at 29.510 seconds (162.250mph), to pace the 36-car field in NASCAR Cup Series practice.
Sitting in the runner-up spot, more than a tenth of a second behind Reddick, was Martin Truex, Jr. who is looking for his third victory of the season at the 1.33-mile facility. Toyota swept the top-two spots in the session while placing four of six entries inside the top-10.
Ross Chastain finished practice in third place, while fellow Chevrolet drivers Erik Jones and William Byron were the fourth and fifth-quickest drivers in the session.
While the pace out of Byron and Hendrick Motorsports isn’t much of a surprise, the speed from Jones and LEGACY MOTOR CLUB is, with the team only scoring a pair of top-10 results this season at Atlanta and Talladega.
Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin, teammates to Tyler Reddick and Martin Truex, Jr., respectively, were sixth and seventh quickest, while Chase Elliott, the defending winner at Nashville Superspeedway, Chris Buescher, and AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top-10.
The session, extended to 50 minutes this weekend as a result of the reintroduction to NBC and its family of networks, only featured one stoppage, which came as a result of a spin by Kyle Busch, who avoided major damage to his No. 8.
Busch would complete the session ranked 21st. The slowest driver in practice was Josh Bilicki, driving for Live Fast Motorsports, who was over two seconds off the pace of the session leader.
Qualifying for Sunday’s Ally 400 will take place on Saturday at 1:05 PM ET, where each of the 36 drivers will run a lap for their starting spot in the 300-lap contest from Nashville Superspeedway.
