Race Weekend Central

Tifft and Preece Pace XFINITY Series Practices at Kentucky

XFINITY Series First Practice Reportfrom Kentucky

NASCAR XFINITY Series playoff driver Matt Tifft turned the fastest lap of the initial practice in Kentucky. Tifft turned a lap of 29.929 seconds with a speed of 180.427 mph. He was 0.196 seconds faster than second place Brian Scott followed by Ryan Preece, Brandon Jones, and Justin Allgaier.

All but one playoff driver finished inside the top-20, with that driver being Jeremy Clements in 21st. Current points leader William Byron finished the session in 14th. Regular season champion and defending race winner Elliott Sadler was seventh fastest.

It should be noted that 36 of the 40 drivers took a lap in this session, with William Byron and Brennan Poole turning the most laps of the session at 28. B.J McLeod and Mike Harmon turned the least amount of laps with just two. There was a 5.101-second difference between the first-place car and the 36th place car.

Ben Kennedy was the only driver who stayed out for more than ten laps in the session who had an average speed of 174.630 mph.

Final Practice

Ryan Preece turned the fastest lap in the final practice session at Kentucky tonight. His fastest lap was his first lap around the track in the session turning a 29.731 second lap (181.629 mph.). Playoff driver Justin Allgaier finished second by 0.140 seconds. Spencer Gallagher, Tyler Reddick, and Daniel Hemric rounded out the top five.

Not surprisingly, 10 of the 12 XFINITY Series playoff drivers finished inside the top 20. Michael Annett and Jeremy Clements were the two drivers finishing outside the top 20. Justin Allgaier was the fastest playoff driver followed by Daniel Hemric, William Byron, and Brennan Poole.

38 of the 40 drivers took at least one laps in the session with Tyler Reddick turning the most at 53. Mike Harmon only turned five laps, the least amount of laps in the session. The pace definitely stepped up in this practice from the first as the split from first to 38th was 3.535 seconds.

Of the 13 drivers that ran 10 consecutive laps, Justin Allgaier was the fastest followed by Brandon Jones, Brennan Poole, Matt Tifft, and Tyler Reddick.

NASCAR XFINITY Series qualifying goes live tomorrow night at 5:30 pm/ET while XFINITY Series Countdown to Green starts at 7:30 pm/ET with the race starting at 8:00 pm/ET.

About the author

His favorite tracks on the circuit include Barber Motorsports Park, Iowa Speedway, Martinsville Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway, Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville, and Bristol Motor Speedway.

During the season, Christian also spends time as a photographer with multiple other outlets shooting Monster Energy AMA Supercross, Minor League & Major League Baseball, and NCAA Football.

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

Share via