Over the years, Phoenix Raceway has always been a strength for Team Penske in the NASCAR Cup Series, with drivers Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano clinching championships at the one-mile facility in Avondale, Arizona.
Granted, no championship is available this weekend at Phoenix, but Team Penske is still looking strong, with two-time series champion Joey Logano pacing NASCAR Cup Series practice on Friday evening.
Posting a quick time of 27.446 seconds (131.166mph), Logano paced the 50-minute session in his No. 22 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang Dark Horse, as teams tweaked their vehicles with NASCAR’s brand-new aero package for short tracks being debuted this weekend.
The Middletown, Connecticut-native completed 55 laps in the session, the quickest of which was put down at the start when he was on sticker tires. Denny Hamlin, driving the No. 11 Mavis Brakes Plus Toyota Camry XSE was ranked in second place.
Toyota and Ford, both of which have brand-new bodies for this year, dominated the top six on the speed charts with Tyler Reddick sitting in third place, John Hunter Nemechek in fourth, and Austin Cindric in fifth. Erik Jones, a teammate to Nemechek, was in sixth.
Chase Elliott put down a flying lap at the tail-end of the session to post the seventh-quickest lap time, while Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, and NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of The Year (ROTY) contender Carson Hocevar rounded out the top-10.
During the session, both Daniel Hemric and Tyler Reddick ran into on-track issues which saw their vehicles spin at opposite ends of the racetrack – Hemric in the fourth corner and Reddick in the second. Neither of the drivers had significant damage to their vehicles, with Hemric rebounding from his early-session incident to return to the racetrack later in the session.
Bubba Wallace, ranked ninth overall in single-lap speed, turned the most laps around Phoenix Raceway during the practice session on Friday, at 64. Christopher Bell and Harrison Burton each turned 60-plus laps around the one-mile oval. Justin Haley, driving the No. 51 Ford Mustang for Rick Ware Racing, turned the fewest laps in the session with 28.
Now, the NASCAR Cup Series will head into qualifying for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway, which will take place Saturday at 2:00 PM ET on FS1.
-- Photo Credit: Craig White, Racing America
