Brad Keselowski led the way in final practice for the Sprint Cup Series field at Darlington Raceway after ripping around the 1.366-mile track in 28.157 seconds.
At a speed of 174.649 mph, Keselowski, who led 196 laps in last year’s Southern 500, led Kurt Busch by a full tenth of a second. Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne and Paul Menard completed the top five.
Under the heat of the South Carolina sun, the field experienced different conditions to race time on Sunday night, as the 500-miler will mostly be run under the lights. Despite the difference, Johnson, who led opening practice on Saturday, ran a session-high 74 laps, joining 13 other drivers who ran more than 50 laps in the 80-minute session.
Greg Biffle finished sixth quickest ahead of Carl Edwards, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Denny Hamlin and Trevor Bayne.
Just outside the top 10 were both 2016 Cup rookies in Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott, who were separated by 0.001 seconds.
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