Yahoo Autos Jones paces Darlington practice
Erik Jones, a two-time Southern 500 winner, led Saturday’s Cup Series practice session at Darlington Raceway.
Jones topped the board at 166.461mph (29.542 seconds). He set the fastest time on his first lap on track.
Denny Hamlin was second fastest at 166.146mph and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was third fastest at 166.118mph. Stenhouse then brought out a brief caution early in practice.
The back end of Stenhouse’s car came around through Turn 4, putting him into a slide before he eventually lost control of the car at the corner exit. Stenhouse spun down the frontstretch and hit the inside wall.
Ross Chastain was fourth fastest at 165.989mph and William Byron was fifth at 165.760mph. Bubba Wallace was sixth fastest at 165.386mph and Tyler Reddick seventh at 165.320mph. Chastain and Wallace sit below the playoff grid cutline. Both can mathematically earn a postseason berth on points.
Reddick enters the final race of the regular season as the championship point leader. He would be awarded 15 playoff points for winning the regular-season championship.
John Hunter Nemechek was eighth fastest at 165.031mph, Carson Hocevar was ninth fastest at 164.860 mph and Kyle Larson completed the top 10 at 164.832mph. Larson is the defending race winner of the Southern 500.
Chris Buescher was 15th in practice, Ty Gibbs was 17th, and Martin Truex Jr. was 21st. All three sit above the playoff grid cutline on points.
Joey Logano, who was 30th fastest in practice, ran the most laps of any driver in practice. Logano clocked 37 laps.
Alex Bowman was fastest in the best 10 consecutive lap average. Bowman paced ahead of Todd Gilliland, Noah Gragson, Josh Berry and Carson Hocevar
