By David Morgan, Associate Editor
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Chalk one up for the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion.
In Friday’s lone practice session of the Cup championship race, Ryan Blaney and his No. 12 Team Penske ended the 50-minute warm-up at the top of the board with a lap of 27.174 seconds, 132.480 mph.
In addition to posting the fastest single lap speed, Blaney was also the fastest in the five and 10 lap average speed, giving his team some good mojo as they start their title defense.
“I felt pretty strongly coming this week that we’d be able to have some speed, but you certainly never know for sure in this sport. The times that you do are pretty few and far between. So, yeah, a little bit of relief, it’s where we expected to be, but like I said, you never really know until that that number goes on the board,” said Blaney’s crew chief Jonathan Hassler.
“It certainly kind of invigorates the whole team to see our number there at the top of the board and I think everybody on this team is confident that we could go and contend for another championship. But it certainly gives a little bit of extra pep in everybody’s step.”
William Byron began practice as the fastest of the four title contenders before Blaney eclipsed him, but the driver of the No. 24 would post the fourth fastest time of the session at 27.272 seconds, 132.004 mph.
Byron did have a close call though near the end of practice as he was heading to pit road, faced with the blinding Arizona sun, nearly rear-ending the Toyota of Christopher Bell in the process.
The third of the four Playoff drivers, two-time champion Joey Logano, would complete practice in ninth-place after posting his lap of 27.323 seconds, 131.757 mph as he looks to move into elite territory as one of a select number of Cup drivers to have three championships on their resume.
Tyler Reddick brought up the rear of the Championship 4 as he was only able to post the 21st fastest time in practice, leaving his No. 45 23XI Racing team with work to do for the remainder of the weekend in their first championship appearance.
“I don’t think speed was probably quite as good as we would’ve liked,” said Reddick’s crew chief Billy Scott.
“That’s fair. But it’s also hard to get a judge on your raw speed when you’re in traffic. I think all of our runs, we did have a lot of guys right in front of us, so that determined that a little bit. But there are things that we…
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