Friday, July 15, 2011

Bowyer Posts Fastest Lap in New Hampshire's First Practice Session

The Bowyer New England party continues from last year
Clint Bowyer, with a lap speed of 134.212 mph, posted the fastest lap speed during the first Cup series practice session at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Bowyer, a two-time NHMS winner, has to feel good about coming to a track like this after having some recent struggles elsewhere that has dropped him to 12th in points.

Oh, this is a crucial time for us," Bowyer said Friday before practice, "We’ve got them breathing down our necks and we’re still within reaching distance of the cars in front of us, so this is a good time to get things pointed back in the right direction points-wise. But I tell you, with this crazy wild card thing this is a good track for us to get a win and solidify ourselves in the Chase. So it’s an important weekend for sure.”

Do you think Bowyer found himself some confidence with that first session lap? And you know he is going to go all out for it on race day too.

Second fastest with a lap speed of 134.103 mph, was Tony Stewart, and he was followed by his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Ryan Newman (133.778) who was third. A.J. Allmendinger (133.741) was fourth and Paul Menard (133.562) fifth.

The teams will return to the track at 3:10 PM (EDT) for their scheduled qualifying session, and then return on Saturday for two more practice sessions (9:30 AM – 10:20 AM & “Happy Hour – 11:45 AM – 12:45 PM – EDT).

Great to see a 'normal' practice session done this week the traditional way.

Top-5 Practice Speeds from Friday's first New Hampshire practice (90 minutes):
#33-Bowyer 134.212
#14-Stewart 134.103
#39-Newman 133.778
#43-Allmendinger 133.741
#27-Menard 133.562
slowest: #81-Riggs 129.156 & #92-Setzer 128.876.
fastest 10 lap average
#20-Logano 128.573
#11-Denny Hamlin 128.188
#51-Landon Cassill 126.105

Practice-1 Speeds 

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