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Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon Fastest in Friday XFINITY Auto Club Practices

Kyle Busch continues his domination of the XFINITY Series by being fastest in the first practice session by half a second over the rest of the field. Meanwhile, Austin Dillon was fastest in the second practice session, but Busch’s presence was still felt.

Practice 1

Busch’s second lap of his 23 ran in this session was half a second faster than anybody else’s final lap. To compare, Busch’s lap was at 177.327 mph while second place Erik Jones’ fastest lap was at 174.982 mph.

Kyle Larson was third and a little closer to Jones at 174.910 mph. It’s Larson’s second XFINITY race of the season, at a track where Larson’s first XFINITY Series win was at two years ago this weekend. Meanwhile, Elliott Sadler finished this session in fourth. Sadler, who celebrated his 300th XFINITY Series start last week and is second in the point standings, is looking to close the gap on points leader Daniel Suarez’s eight-point lead.

Austin Dillon was fifth while the Team Penske No. 22, this week piloted by Ryan Blaney, was sixth.

Justin Allgaier (10th) smacked the wall roughly 20 minutes into the session. The wreck caused a temporary caution before going back green a few minutes later. Allgaier will go to a backup car on Saturday, and as per the rule book will not go to the back of the field as he did not qualify in his primary.

Full results can be found here.

Practice 2

Although Austin Dillon was fastest in this session, Kyle Busch was second and had the best 10-lap consecutive average as teams worked on race trim throughout most of the session. Dillon’s lap of 176.622 mph also pales in comparison to Busch’s 177.327 mph during the first session.

Blaney was third. Team Penske has seemed to be a bit behind compared to the Gibbs and even Childress cars so far this season, so it was a good session for the Ford team. Ty Dillon was fourth as he hopes to improve on his best finish of eighth at Fontana. Larson rounded out the top 5. The other Gibbs Toyota’s of Suarez and Jones were sixth and seventh respectively.

Allgaier ended this session in 15th as the team worked on getting the backup car up to speed.

Full results can be found here.

Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.

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