Bubba Wallace topped the speed chart at the end of the NASCAR Cup Series practice session Friday at Nashville Superspeedway.
The 23XI Racing driver posted a top speed of 161.708 mph in the 50-minute session.
Wallace recorded 45 laps around the 1.33-mile oval with his top speed coming on his 23rd lap.
He had the second best five-lap average (160.443) and the best 10 lap (159.681) and 15-lap averages.
Wallace told NBC Sports it was “no doubt” his best practice session of the season to date.
“We needed this, hell, I needed this,” Wallace said. “Our whole team needed it. We’ve just (had) bad luck and bad luck every week. We were the first car out of the race (at Sonoma Raceway) two weeks ago and now we’re the first at the top of the board. I’ll take that trade-off, but practice doesn’t mean anything. … Shaping up to be a good weekend. … Went right out, had a lot of speed and did what I wanted to do. Really small thing we need to tweak on to be better.”
Following Wallace in the session was Kyle Busch, whose top speed was 160.936 mph.
The top five was completed by Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and William Byron.
Larson, the defending Nashville winner, said the “track is a lot different” from last year.
“Sounds like they put a different type of resin down,” Larson told NBC Sports. “I don’t feel like the grooves nearly as wide. At least me and a few others were committed to the very bottom. Hopefully the groove will widen out or it’ll be really hard to pass. I caught (Martin Truex Jr.) on the first run and then I got tight. … I feel like that last run was decent.”
The fastest Ford driver in the session was Ryan Blaney in eighth.
Click here for the practice report.
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