For the first time this weekend, someone other than Mike Skeen topped the speed charts at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park as Chase Elliott was quickest this morning. Elliott laid down a lap of 81.063 seconds behind the wheel of his No. 94 Aaron’s Dream Machine/Hendrickcars.com Chevrolet Silverado.
Elliott has a pair of road course ARCA starts under his belt this year with an average finish of 3.5 between them.
“Having two road course starts in the ARCA Racing Series earlier this year definitely won’t hurt,” Elliott said. “Having a chance to do some road racing this year is always going to be an advantage. However, Canadian Motorsports Park is a different track and a place I’ve never been to before. A lot of guys are in the same boat there, so I think the guy who can adapt the quickest is going to have an advantage.”
Skeen was second quickest behind the wheel of his No. 6 Hawk Performance Chevrolet Silverado, 0.351 seconds behind Elliott. Skeen,a driver in the Pirelli Wold Challenge GT Series, is making his Camping World Truck Series debut debut. In his past four Pirelli World Challenge GT Series starts at CTMP, he has four poles and four wins. Skeen currently sits sixth in the World Challenge GT Series standings after winning at Lime Rock earlier this year.
“Anytime you have that much success with a track you’re comfortable with it,” Skeen commented. “But this is a whole other world. I’ve had very little time in stock cars and not certainly any round here.”
Skeen says so far, it’s been learning about how far he can push the truck before it gets out of shape, and then learning his competition.
“I’ve only been watching these guys on TV so I don’t know have a good feel of who I am going up against,” he commented. “I think that’s a big thing when you’re in a new series – trying to get the personalities of the drivers you’re going to go up against. Certainly trying to learn that and probably won’t learn that till race time. That’s the biggest unknown for me, but certainly very confident.”
Ryan Blaney was third fastest behind the wheel of the No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford, with NASCAR Canadian Tire Series regular Alex Guenette finished fourth. Miguel Paludo was fifth quickest.
“I can’t wait to get on the road course and see what we’ve got,” Blaney said. “I know we’ll be fast. This team has been on a tear of late. I’m confident our Cooper Standard team will have a shot at winning Sunday afternoon which will put us right back in the championship hunt.”
Ty Dillon was sixth, followed by Max Papis, Darrell Wallace Jr., Chad Hackenbracht and German Quiroga.
Points leader Matt Crafton was 11th quickest.
The Camping World Truck Series will have another practice this afternoon followed by qualifying later today.
