Suarez Tops Second Cup Practice at Charlotte

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Correspondent

CONCORD, N.C. – One week removed from spinning across the infield of Charlotte Motor Speedway, Daniel Suarez topped the charts for the second practice.

Suarez’s No. 41 Coca-Cola Ford Mustang was on track for a total of 49 laps. His car carrying the colors of the Coca-Cola 600, he ran a 29.647 second, 182.143 MPH lap. In comparison, the time that the Stewart-Haas Racing driver set was over two tenths off the pole speed set by William Byron on Spectrum Pole Night.

Defending race winner Kyle Busch was second fastest in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice session, 0.015 seconds off of the time set by Suarez, with a speed of 182.051 MPH.

Austin Dillon, who is one of four drivers pulling double duty this weekend was third fastest. Ryan Blaney, and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top-five.

Denny Hamlin, who ran the most laps of anyone in the session with 52 laps completed, was sixth on the speed charts. Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr., Daniel Hemric, who was fastest in Thursday’s practice, and Erik Jones completed the top-10 in the morning practice session.

Other notables included Jimmie Johnson in 11^th, outside pole sitter Aric Almirola in 13^th, defending series champion Joey Logano in 14^th, Chase Elliott 15^th, Kurt Busch 16^th, Bubba Wallace 17^th, Brad Keselowski 18^th, and Alex Bowman 22^nd.

Pole winner William Byron’s No. 24 Liberty Patriotic Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was 23^rd fastest despite running 33 laps in the session.

Kyle Larson’s struggles continue. After his No. 42 Credit One Bank Chevrolet Camaro qualified 25^th, he was 25^th in the practice session.

BJ McLeod completed the fewest laps in the session, three. He was 36^th on the speed charts. McLeod, like Dillon is also running double duty this weekend.

Ross Chastain and Landon Cassill, who are the other two drivers competing in both races, were 33^rd and 34^th in the session respectively.