NASCAR has officially returned to the oval configuration of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The first drivers to hit the racetrack were those competing in Saturday’s Pennzoil 250 for the NASCAR Xfinity Series, getting an extended 50-minute practice session on Friday to shakedown their racecars.
While a significant portion of the entered drivers and teams elected to run the entire session in race trim, there was a small faction of teams that made mock qualifying runs, which naturally landed them at the top of speed charts for Friday’s session.
Chandler Smith, driving the No. 81 QuickTie Toyota GR Supra for Joe Gibbs Racing, was quickest in Friday’s practice, turning a lap of 53.971 seconds (166.756mph) — the only driver in the session to drop below the 54-second threshold.
Parker Kligerman and Conor Daly were second and third-quickest in Friday’s practice from Indianapolis, after both Big Machine Racing and Sam Hunt Racing got their racecars mocked up to make a qualifying run in the final minutes of the session.
Of the drivers who set their fastest laps in race trim, Brandon Jones was the fastest, sitting fourth place overall on the speed charts. Riley Herbst rounded out the top five, putting his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang in fifth.
Jordan Anderson Racing teammates Jeb Burton and Parker Retzlaff both occupied positions inside the top-10 in the session – sixth and ninth respectively — turning their best laps in race trim early on in the session. However, Retzlaff only turned two laps in the session, after damaging the right-side of his No. 31.
Partnering with AM Racing for a second straight event, Josh Berry was seventh-place on the practice charts, with Joe Graf, Jr. just behind in eighth, participating in his first practice session of the season for Joe Gibbs Racing. With Retzlaff in ninth, AJ Allmendinger occupied the final spot inside the top-10.
RESULTS: NASCAR Xfinity Series Practice from Indianapolis
There were no major incidents that took place during the session, with Retzlaff the only driver known to have damage from contact.
In the closing minutes of practice, Sheldon Creed (12th quickest) was reported to have an engine issue on his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota GR Supra. Mechanical gremlins have been a major issue for Creed this season, including two weeks ago at Chicago, where he also had an issue in practice.
Other than those small incidents, the only other adversity faced during the session was for RSS Racing, whose driver Ryan Sieg, was impacted by the widespread outages this morning across the United States, which has impacted flights, and even data centers for some organizations.
The Tucker, Georgia native didn’t arrive at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in time to start practice and instead had NASCAR Cup Series driver Noah Gragson shake down the No. 39 Ford Mustang until Sieg made it to the racetrack to get in his car.
