Race Weekend Central

Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon Pace XFINITY Practices at Michigan

The XFINITY Series had two of the most anticipated practice sessions of the season on Friday (June 8) with a new restrictor plate package that NASCAR implemented most recently last weekend at Pocono Raceway

The pair of practices didn’t disappoint having three and four-wide battles, while drivers were aggressive to see what their respective cars had. At the end of each session, it was a Cup Series regular at the top of the leaderboard with Kyle Busch and Austin Dillon leading the  way.

Practice One: 

Throughout the opening practice, there was a lot of pack racing, sometimes, four-wide. But at the conclusion of the 50-minute session, it was Pocono winnerBusch that sat atop the leaderboard (175.584 mph), running all by himself.

The No. 18 car was .070 seconds quicker than second-place John Hunter Nemechek (175.285 mph). Justin Allgaier was just behind the No. 42 car with the third quickest time (175.268 mph).

Cole Custer was just over one-tenth of a second off the pace, ending practice fourth on the chart (175.119 mph), while Elliott Sadler completed the top five (175.004 mph).

Christopher Bell, Daniel Hemric, Dillon, Kevin Harvick and Paul Menard rounded out the top 10.

Matt Tifft ran 35 laps, the most in the practice session, despite being 11th on the board. 14 drivers made a run of at least 10 laps, led by Bell at 172.868 mph.

Full results from opening practice 

Practice Two: 

Dilllon paced the second session (177.004 mph), just over one-tenth of a second ahead of Ryan Truex (176.561 mph), who turned the second fastest lap.

The No. 3 car turned 34 laps, despite putting up the hot lap early on in practice. Through much of the session, he was in the middle of three-wide action, working on drafting.

Sadler was third quickest in final practice (176.224 mph), while his JR Motorsports teammate Allgaier was fourth (176.125 mph). Two-time Daytona winner Ryan Reed rounded out the top five (176.104 mph), just over two-tenths off the pace.

Busch, Nemechek, Tyler Reddick, Austin Cindric and Hemric filled the rest of the top 10.

For the second consecutive practice Tifft ran the most laps (40), though being 16th on the board. 37 of 41 cars made a time.

Qualifying is scheduled to get underway at 10:05 a.m. ET on Saturday (June 9), while the race will go green shortly after 1:30 p.m. ET.

About the author

Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.

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