Ty Dillon Leads First Daytona 500 Practice

Qualifying practice looked much more like Duel practice on Saturday mid-afternoon. Where we normally see single-car runs in preparation for Qualifying on Sunday, we saw big packs of over a dozen cars at a time drafting and shuffling around each other testing the limits of their cars. With cars being impounded and teams unable to work on them between qualifying on Sunday and the Duels on Thursday, they took this practice session as an opportunity to test the cars in race conditions, even though the Duels will be ran at night.

Topping the leaderboard was 27-year old Ty Dillon in his #13 Germain Racing Chevrolet. Entering his 4th full-time Cup Series season, the younger Dillon brother is coming off of his best season so far having scored 1 Top-5 and 3 Top-10’s en route to a 24th place finish in the final point standings. Dillon starts out the year on top leading the first practice of the 2020 season that includes the entire Cup Series field as well as in the 10 consecutive lap average charts.

Joining him at the top was Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who is donning new colors and a new manufacturer in 2020. After running the #17 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing since 2013, Stenhouse was released and made a free agent for the 2020 season after RFR re-activated a previous contract they had with Chris Buescher. A 2-time Xfinity Series champion, Stenhouse now moves over to JTG Daugherty Racing where he will wheel the #47 car, as Ryan Preece will switch to the #37 while staying in the JTG camp.

Following Dillon and Stenhouse were a whole bunch of Toyota’s as they created their own posse on the track, similar to the Clash practice, only with the additions of Christopher Bell and Daniel Suarez.

Pos#DriverCarTimeSpeed
113Ty DillonChevrolet44.206203.592
247Ricky Stenhouse Jr.Chevrolet44.293203.192
311Denny HamlinToyota44.404202.684
420Erik JonesToyota44.439202.525
519Martin Truex Jr.Toyota44.471202.379
695Christopher Bell #Toyota44.490202.293
718Kyle BuschToyota44.513202.188
8*96Daniel SuarezToyota44.521202.152
936David RaganFord44.533202.097
1021Matt DiBenedettoFord44.576201.902
1117Chris BuescherFord44.789201.167
1210Aric AlmirolaFord44.806200.866
1341Cole Custer #Ford44.878200.544
1414Clint BowyerFord45.030199.867
1534Michael McDowellFord45.158199.300
1638John Hunter Nemechek #Ford45.160199.291
176Ryan NewmanFord45.277198.776
1843Bubba WallaceChevrolet45.290198.719
1915Brennan Poole #Chevrolet45.364198.395
2032Corey LaJoieFord45.380198.325
212Brad KeselowskiFord45.628197.247
22*54JJ YeleyFord45.786196.567
239Chase ElliottChevrolet45.868196.215
2448Jimmie JohnsonChevrolet46.056195.414
2588Alex BowmanChevrolet46.155194.995
2600Quin Houff #Chevrolet46.190194.847
278Tyler Reddick #Chevrolet46.428193.849
2837Ryan PreeceChevrolet46.449193.761
294Kevin HarvickFord46.585193.195
3024William ByronChevrolet46.649192.930
3122Joey LoganoFord46.657192.897
3242Kyle LarsonChevrolet46.674192.827
33*62Brendan Gaughan (i)Chevrolet46.814192.250
341Kurt BuschChevrolet46.829192.189
3512Ryan BlaneyFord46.958191.661
363Austin DillonChevrolet47.190190.718
3777Ross Chastain (i)Chevrolet47.215190.617
3852BJ McLeod (i)Ford47.324190.178
39*27Reed SorensonChevrolet47.340190.114
40*16Justin Haley (i)Chevrolet47.347190.086
4151Joey Gase (i)Chevrolet47.475189.573
42*66Timmy Hill (i)Ford48.562185.330
43*49Chad FinchumToyota48.965183.805

Author: Tom Bailey

Tom Bailey (@TomBaileyScoop) grew up in the backyard of Chicagoland Speedway, making a passion for all motorsports inevitable. Tom is entering his first full year of racing coverage in 2020 as the owner and founder of InfieldScoop.com. You can contact him at [email protected]

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