Texas NRA 500 Post-Practice Notes and Final Driver Ratings

Keselowski was good in practice Friday

By Micah Roberts

Martin Truex Jr. and Marcos Ambrose were the fastest during Friday's two 90-minute practice sessions at Texas Motor Speedway in preparation for Saturday's NRA 500. However, Friday's practices might not tell the entire story of what we'll see Saturday night under the lights, when the temperature is much cooler. Both of Friday's sessions were run under the sun in conditions that won't be relative to Saturday's 7:46 p.m. (ET) start time.

In each of the sessions, there were some strange occurrences that kind of let everyone know that the irregular practice schedule -- in relation to being a night race run on Saturday -- had teams trying several different things other than simply trying to maximize speed under the sun.

For instance, in the final session, Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. all finished with single lap speeds 32nd or worse, which is almost unheard of collectively. On normal race weekends, the final session is about maximizing speed and getting a last chance to be fast on race day. However, when looking at the 10-consecutive lap averages from the same session, all five of those drivers placed in the top 10, which shows they were placing a premium on being good in long runs.

Brad Keselowski ended up with the best 10-consecutive lap average during happy hour, and Paul Menard was tops in the early session.

Read More Here......Final Driver Ratings