Wood Brothers Racing’s Ryan Blaney set the fastest lap in the final NASCAR Cup Series practice session at Bristol Motor Speedway Friday afternoon.
The No. 21 Ford driver put in 46 laps with a fastest time of 14.926 seconds at 128.554 mph, 0.057 of a second faster than runner-up Kyle Larson (128.065mph). Larson led the session until very late on, when Blaney turned his fastest lap with a couple of minutes remaining.
Showers threatened the session as they did in the morning and the session was hit by light rain 70 minutes in with a short delay.
Richard Childress Racing’s Ryan Newman finished third at 127.784 mph, ahead of Jamie McMurray and Kyle Busch in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Chris Buescher put the No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet sixth at 127.098mph in front of Trevor Bayne while Erik Jones finished fastest of the rookies in eighth place for Furniture Row Racing.
AJ Allmendinger (ninth) and Clint Bowyer rounded out the top 10 who were split by 0.236s.
Richard Petty Motorsport’s Aric Almirola recorded the most laps with 87 in the No. 43 Ford while BJ McLeod put in the least, with eight. McLeod was the only driver in the field not to post 10 laps.
Timmy Hill spun in the No. 41 to bring out a brief early caution and finished last of the 41 drivers who all turned laps, 1.095s off the pace.
The fastest of the open team drivers was JJ Yeley in the No. 7 Chevrolet who went 123.810mph in 33rd.
McMurray, Bowyer, Buescher and Allmendinger missed 15 minutes of the session having failed pre-race inspection at Michigan.
Martin Truex Jr. (11th),Chase Elliott (12th), Kasey Kahne (15th) and Jimmie Johnson (22nd) also faced respective 15 minute practice penalties for multiple inspection failures at Michigan.
Coverage of Coors Light Pole Qualifying for the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol begins at 5.30 p.m. Friday evening on NBCSN.
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