Austin Dillon was on fire at Charlotte Motor Speedway; at one point, literally. Dillon qualified on the pole for Friday's Drive for the Cure 300 by edging fellow cup driver Kasey Kahne with a speed of 183.524 mph. During pre-race activities, one of the fireworks that were set off, misfired and landed on Dillon and his car, burning his fire suit.
Kyle Busch topped the charts in the final practice session. The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was the fastest with a time of 28.518 and a speed of 189.354 mph.
Kurt Busch led the way during the second practice session at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The driver of the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 Chevrolet posted a lap of 28.606 and a speed of 188.772 mph to top the charts in the second Sprint Cup Series practice.
The motto for the 24 team in the Challenger Round struck me as simply "survive and advance." While he had a dominant car at Chicagoland, he was a 10th-place car at best in Loudon and Dover. Now that Gordon has moved on to the Contender Round, he'll find the track lineup of Charlotte, Kansas and Talladega to his advantage.
To quote a famous Oscar-winning film, "There's no place like home." This Saturday, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Bank of America 500, the 30th race of the season, the fourth of the Chase and first of the Contender Round.
From my eyes, it appeared that the racing at Kentucky was better than the previous races at the Sparta, Kentucky track. The statistics bear that out and the eye test was overwhelmingly positive. Drivers loved it and all the slipping and sliding was entertaining to most fans.
"This is a confidence booster for all of my guys," Wallace said. "We just have to clean up ourselves on pit road. That's been a struggle for us these last couple races, but we've been able to manage a couple spots on restarts and come away with our first top-five in the series.”
