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Strong Run Could Bring Momentum for Allmendinger

Sunday’s second-place run in the STP 500 at Martinsville could bring much-needed success for A.J. Allmendinger and his No. 47 JTG/Daughtery Racing Chevrolet. The run comes fresh on the heels of a solid effort at California two weeks ago when Allmendinger ran in the top-10 most of the day and finished eighth. A lot of this can be attributed to the recent addition of Randall Burnett as Crew Chief, replacing Brian Burns in the off-season.

In his first six starts as a Sprint Cup Crew Chief, Burnett has helped bring the team one top-five and two top-10s, and as if to further prove that his union with Allmendinger could pay dividends, the No. 47 team is currently sitting in 12th in the points standings. Of course, that could change over the year, but with the exception of a season-worst 27th-place run at Atlanta, the team has been improving on a weekly basis.

Following Sunday’s race, Allmendinger said, regarding his performance, “You know, Randall Burnett, first-year crew chief, Ernie Cope coming aboard, they’ve made a huge difference. My crew chief last year, Brian Burns, kind of going down back to his engineering role and Tony Palmer, that was the engineer last year, being kind of the second race engineer, everybody has just embraced their roles. It’s made this team a lot of fun to be around.

With his steady rate of improvement, this does not look like it’s going to stop anytime soon. That’s not saying Allmendinger is a plausible threat to win Texas on Saturday, but the team has been quietly marching forward with consistent runs in the top-half of the field and could eventually break through in a big way in 2016.

All he has to do is keep his cool and keep up with these strong showings. They’ve shown that short tracks and road courses can be their strong suits this year, so if they repeat their Martinsville performance (and if Allmendinger can get some of his luck on the road courses back from 2014), they’ll be due for another Chase appearance this year. They have the strength, Allmendinger has the ability, and Burnett has the chemistry with the team to make it happen. They just need to keep building momentum.

They have the strength, Allmendinger has the ability, and Burnett has the chemistry with the team to make it happen. They just need to keep building momentum.

April 4, 2016
Martinsville in the Rear-View

It’s time we put a nice little bow on the events of the Virginia paperclip from this past weekend.

I’ll be honest. Yesterday’s STP 500 was average for a race at Martinsville Speedway. It certainly wasn’t bad or one that I would include in my list of most disappointing races of 2016 (yet), but there wasn’t much of the action or bumping and banging we have come to expect. The rubber wasn’t laying down like Goodyear expected. From what I’ve been told, it was the cold temperatures that contributed to that. I think it’ll be different when we go back to Martinsville in October.

Kyle Busch finally earned his first grandfather clock this weekend after winning Saturday’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250 Camping World Truck Series race. He said after the race that he would put that clock in the foyer to see how long it would take Brexton to figure put how it chimes. He then followed that up by winning the Cup race and earning a second grandfather clock. When asked, he said he doesn’t know where he’ll put No. 2.

It was nothing short of a dominant performance by the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota this entire weekend. He led 123 of the 255 laps on Saturday and 352 of the 500 yesterday. That means of the 755 laps run this weekend, Busch led 475 of them (62.91 percent). Just to add to his performance yesterday, he had a 148.2 driver rating. That’s less than two-points short of a perfect rating.

I don’t know what they hit on this weekend, but they nailed their car this weekend and nobody was going to beat him.

AJ Allmendinger scored his best finish of the season with a runner-up in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet.

He said that he “was hoping for one more spot for a culmination,” but that it was cool that he “passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville.”

His performance caught me off guard because he just quietly stayed in the top-10 all day and made a great finish out of it. But then again, it’s been said that Martinsville is rhythm racing, like road course racing, and he’s pretty good when it comes to the road courses.

So far in 2016, he’s amassed two top-10 finishes and sits 12th in points.

Coming off a nasty wreck at Auto Club Speedway two weeks ago and going to a track where he never finished better than 19th, Kyle Larson surprised everyone with a podium finish in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.

“In the past, it’s (Martinsville) been my worst racetrack on the schedule, so to get a top‑three finish here feels great, feels like a win, to be honest, and hopefully, this is a good momentum shift that we need,” Larson said. “We’ve been struggling all year long so far and been working hard, but it hasn’t paid off.”

While I not sure how much a good run at Martinsville will translate to a good run at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, it’s great for Larson after his lackluster season so far.

Austin Dillon continued his strong run of great drives this season with a fourth-place finish. In addition, teammates Paul Menard finished eighth and Ryan Newman rounded out the top-10. More and more, I’m seeing Richard Childress Racing starting to resurge into possibly a winning organization again.

I’ll conclude this by addressing those people who threw beer cans onto the track after the race. Normally, I’d save this for “The White Zone,” but I already did one of those when I talked about those who did this same thing last fall at Talladega. But just like then, there’s no justification to throw objects on track. There are two main reasons: One, you run the risk of injuring someone with a full can of beer. Finally, you should never waste perfectly good beer. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, so I’ll end it here.

That about sums up the events of this weekend. Next up for the Sprint Cup Series is the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

*The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author. They may or may not be shared by SpeedwayMedia.com.

April 4, 2016
Rowdy Takes a Bow in Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– One clock wasn’t enough for Kyle Busch this weekend because he dominated and scored a second grandfather clock at the Virginia paperclip.

The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led 352 of the 500 laps on his way to scoring the victory in the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway. It’s his 35th career victory in the Sprint Cup Series and first at Martinsville.

“I’d say it certainly helps when you get to run other divisions and that’s why I do it to pay off on Sundays,” Busch said in victory lane. “It doesn’t work every single weekend, but it works more times than it doesn’t, so can’t say enough about everyone at KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) for giving me a great piece yesterday to help me learn, teach me some more things about Martinsville that I didn’t already know in 30 other prior starts. I can’t say enough about this whole JGR team on this side. This M&M’s Camry was awesome in practice yesterday. We had a really good car through practice and Adam (Stevens, crew chief) made some really good adjustments overnight to keep us where we need to be in order to run up front all day, led a lot of laps, probably led the most laps there and to win here in Martinsville is pretty cool – finally get to take a clock home. A lot of people said I didn’t deserve yesterday – maybe I don’t – but I certainly got one today.”

AJ Allmendinger brought his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet home to a runner-up finish.

“Well, I was hoping for one more spot for a culmination. But, I passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville; that’s pretty cool! I can’t thank everybody on this team enough, especially (team owners) Tad and Jodi Geschickter. They put a lot of effort into this team. We weren’t where we wanted to be about six months ago. We brought in so many people who stepped up to embrace their new roles. I can’t thank all our sponsors enough.”

Kyle Larson rounded out the podium in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Austin Dillon finished fourth in his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top-five in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford.

“It was a good Martinsville race,” Keselowski said. “We had a lot of speed with the Miller Lite Ford on the long runs, but just not quite enough on the short runs to make anything of the Gibbs cars. They were really strong all day. All in all, I’m really proud of my team. We’re starting to get to this place where we’re real consistent and can run up front and that’s a good feeling.”

Carl Edwards finished sixth in his No. 19 JGR Toyota. Brian Vickers finished seventh in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet followed by Paul Menard who led 10 laps on his way to an eighth-place finish in his No. 27 RCR Chevrolet. Jimmie Johnson finished ninth in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet while Ryan Newman rounded out the top-10 in his No. 31 RCR Chevrolet.

Pole-sitter Joey Logano led 21 laps, but fell way off early in the race, was busted for an uncontrolled tire and recovered for an 11th-place finish.

“It was frustrating,” said Logano. “You want to go out there and win for sure and we just missed it. The first run was just absolutely awful to go down a lap from the lead, so we fought to get our car better, which we did, and then we over adjusted and came back and over adjusted on the way back, and then we had a pit road penalty. I think we know where we missed it, but we didn’t have the tools to fix what we needed to fix. Once the race starts a lot of times your hands are tied because you only have a certain amount of adjustments on your car or even on pit stops that we could fix what our problem was.

“We’ve just got to back and learn from our mistakes and learn from what happened today. It seems like this tire kind of threw us for a loop today, or at least for our car.”

Matt Kenseth led 45 laps and restarted the race second on the final restart, but was unable to get to the bottom and finished 15th. Despite leading 72 laps, Kevin Harvick was a non-factor toward the end as he finished 17th.

The race lasted three hours, 17 minutes and two seconds at an average speed of 80.088 mph. There were 11 lead changes among five different drivers and eight cautions for 51 laps. Nineteen cars finished on the lead lap and three failed to finish.

“We had a part failure with a part that typically doesn’t break, so I’m not sure,” said Aric Almirola after finishing 40th. “Doug (Yates) will go back and investigate it and I’m sure they’ll figure something out so it won’t ever happen again. It was a disappointing end to our day. We had an okay STP Ford Fusion. We were making it better and were probably a 15th-place car. Walking out of the track now, I certainly would have taken a 15th-place finish because this is gonna put us in a pretty big hole.”

Harvick retains the points lead after Martinsville followed by Johnson (-4), Kyle Busch (-5), Edwards (-14) and Logano (-24), to round out the top five.

Complete Results NSCS STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway:

1. (7) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 500.
2. (6) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 500.
3. (17) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 500.
4. (29) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 500.
5. (11) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 500.
6. (25) Carl Edwards, Toyota, 500.
7. (3) Brian Vickers, Chevrolet, 500.
8. (4) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 500.
9. (24) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 500.
10. (5) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 500.
11. (1) Joey Logano, Ford, 500.
12. (14) Greg Biffle, Ford, 500.
13. (23) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 500.
14. (21) Dale Earnhardt Jr, Chevrolet, 500.
15. (9) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, 500.
16. (28) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, 500.
17. (19) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 500.
18. (16) Martin Truex Jr, Toyota, 500.
19. (12) * Ryan Blaney #, Ford, 500.
20. (10) Chase Elliott #, Chevrolet, 499.
21. (22) David Ragan, Toyota, 499.
22. (2) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 499.
23. (15) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 499.
24. (27) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 498.
25. (30) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 497.
26. (26) Brian Scott #, Ford, 496.
27. (32) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 496.
28. (33) Landon Cassill, Ford, 495.
29. (35) Matt DiBenedetto, Toyota, 495.
30. (31) * Cole Whitt, Chevrolet, 495.
31. (18) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 494.
32. (13) Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Ford, 494.
33. (36) Chris Buescher #, Ford, 491.
34. (34) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 491.
35. (38) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 490.
36. (37) Joey Gase(i), Ford, 490.
37. (40) * Reed Sorenson, Chevrolet, 490.
38. (39) * Josh Wise, Chevrolet, Engine, 326.
39. (8) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, Accident, 221.
40. (20) Aric Almirola, Ford, Engine, 206.

April 3, 2016
Kyle Busch Victorious in Trucks at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Kyle Busch can now say he owns a Martinsville grandfather clock after scoring the Truck victory at the Virginia paperclip.

The driver of the No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota led 123 of the 255 laps on his way to scoring the win in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at Martinsville Speedway. It’s his 45th career victory in the series and first at Martinsville in any series.

Busch spoke about the significance of the win.

“I’ve got a couple owner’s ones (grandfather clock trophies), but never one of my own, so this is just a day that we’ve been looking for for a long, long time. We just haven’t never necessarily had all the pieces go together like they should have and I didn’t know that the pieces we’re going to go together today either the way all them cautions were kind of playing out, the way tire strategy was playing out, when to pit, when not to pit, how to do all of that. Wes (Ward, crew chief) and I we both leaned on each other and we both had no idea, so we just dumbed into this I think, but it all worked out, so this Toyota Tundra was awesome.

“All the guys at KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports), KBM chassis, NOS, TRD (Toyota Racing Development), Joe Gibbs Racing Engines – appreciate them – Camping World, of course, the fans – it’s neat to win here at Martinsville. I love when they do it up here on the front stretch for everyone to be up close and personal.”

John Hunter Nemechek finished runner-up in his No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet. Busch’s teammate, William Byron, finished third in his No. 9 KBM Toyota.

“I was able to hang tough on the outside,” Nemechek said, “get around William (Byron) there at the end. That was the big key for us to finish second — if not we were probably going to lose a couple spots.

“Those restarts were hectic at the end. I just kept spinning the tires on the restarts. We’ve got to go back and look at some things. I could never get to Kyle.”

Nemechek leaves Martinsville with a three-point lead over Parker Kligerman, who finished in eighth place.

Kyle Larson led 79 laps on his way to a fourth-place finish in his No. 24 GMS Racing Chevrolet while Timothy Peters rounded out the top-five in his No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota.

Spencer Gallagher finished sixth in his No. 23 GMSR Chevrolet followed by Matt Crafton who finished seventh in his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota and Parker Kligerman in eighth in his No. 92 Ricky Benton Racing Ford. Cameron Hayley led 11 laps on his way to a ninth-place finish in his No. 13 TSR Toyota and Rico Abreu rounded out the top-10 in his No. 98 TSR Toyota.

The race lasted two hours, 10 minutes and 12 seconds at an average speed of 61.811 mph. There were eight lead changes among four different drivers and 11 cautions for 66 laps. There were two red flags for a total of 13 minutes and 12 seconds. Nemechek leaves with a three-point lead over Kligerman in the points standings.

Complete Finishing Order – NCWTS Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at Martinsville Speedway

April 2, 2016
Joey Logano Overdue for Martinsville Win

Going into Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville, Joey Logano is without a doubt the most overdue driver for a Martinsville win. Starting on the pole for Sunday’s event, Logano has four top-fives and five top-10s, three of those coming in his last four starts there.

Last fall at Martinsville, Logano led a race-high 207 laps before an accident sidelined his race as well as his championship hopes. The culprit of the accident was none other than Matt Kenseth, in retribution for Logano dumping him just two weeks before at Kansas. If it weren’t for the accident, Logano would have already had a Grandfather clock in his trophy case (and maybe a Sprint Cup championship trophy as well) heading into the STP 500.

A lot of hype has centered around that incident going into Sunday’s race, but it’s safe to say that nothing of that caliber should happen. Logano has led 414 laps in his last four starts at Martinsville and aside from winning three straight poles at the track, he also has started in the top-10 in the last six races there, with a sixth-place starting effort in October 2013 being his lowest Martinsville start since joining Team Penske.

If that’s not enough, Logano also recorded his first Camping World Truck Series win at Martinsville in the Spring 2015 event, beating Matt Crafton by .431 seconds after leading 150 of 258 laps. He’s become a Martinsville expert at Penske, and he continues to improve and gain closer to that first win at the Virginia paperclip. It’s not a matter of if he’ll win there; it’s a matter of when, and Sunday looks like his likeliest chance at victory.

See video: https://youtu.be/IVKWClMhZGs

With an average finish of 10.5 in 14 starts, plus zero DNFs, Martinsville has become one of Logano’s best tracks on the circuit, and he has become something of a short track master. A win on Sunday would only serve to solidify that, as he has already won at Bristol and Richmond, and it is time for the No. 22 to cross the finish line first and get one of Martinsville’s famous clock trophies.

April 2, 2016
Kyle Larson Fastest in Final Sprint Cup Practice

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Kyle Larson topped the chart in the final Sprint Cup Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.

The driver of the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 19.835 and a speed of 95.468 mph followed by Kyle Busch who was second in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with a time of 19.862 and a speed of 95.338 mph. Brian Vickers was third in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.869 and a speed of 95.304 mph. Ryan Newman was fourth in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.869 and a speed of 95.304 mph while Martin Truex Jr. rounded out the top-five in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota with a time of 19.874 and a speed of 95.280 mph.

Jimmie Johnson was sixth in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin was seventh in his No. 11 JGR Toyota. Matt Kenseth was eighth in his No. 20 JGR Toyota. Kasey Kahne was ninth in his No. 5 HMS Chevrolet. Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-10 in his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford.

Johnson posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 94.866 mph. Larson was second at a speed of 94.842 mph and Truex was third at a speed of 94.836 mph.

With practice and qualifying in the books, all that remains is to run the STP 500 tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. on FS1.

Complete NSCS First Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway

Complete NSCS Second Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway

Complete NSCS Final Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway:

April 2, 2016
Ben Rhodes on the Truck pole at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Ben Rhodes will lead the field to the green flag for today’s Camping World Truck Series race at the Virginia paperclip.

The driver of the No. 41 ThorSport Racing Toyota scored the pole for the Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at Martinsville Speedway after posting a time of 19.659 and a speed of 96.322 mph. It’s the first career pole for the 19 year old rookie from Louisville, Ky.

Kyle Busch will start second in his No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota after posting a time of 19.730 and a speed of 95.976 mph. Johnny Sauter will start third in his No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 19.753 and a speed of 95.864 mph. Cameron Hayley will start fourth in his No. 13 TSR Toyota. Kyle Larson will round out the top-five in his No. 24 GMSR Chevrolet after posting a time of 19.775 and a speed of 95.757 mph.

Daniel Suárez will start sixth in his No. 51 KBM Toyota. William Byron will start seventh in his No. 9 KBM Toyota. John Hunter Nemechek will start eighth in his No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet. Tyler Reddick will start ninth in his No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford. Matt Crafton will round out the top-10 in his No. 88 TSR Toyota.

Spencer Gallagher will start 11th in his No. 23 GMSR Chevrolet. Cole Custer will round out the 12 drivers that made the final round of qualifying in his No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.

The field is set for today’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250 at 2:30 p.m. on FS1.

April 2, 2016
Kasey Kahne Fastest in Second Sprint Cup Practice

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Kasey Kahne topped the chart in second Sprint Cup Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.

The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was the fastest in the second practice session with a time of 19.710 and a speed of 96.073 mph. Ryan Newman was second in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.756 and a speed of 95.849 mph. Martin Truex Jr. was third in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota with a time of 19.788 and a speed of 95.694 mph. Brian Vickers was fourth in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.795 and a speed of 95.661 mph. Paul Menard rounded out the top-five in his No. 27 RCR Chevrolet with a time of 19.800 and a speed of 95.636 mph.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was sixth in his No. 88 HMS Chevrolet. Casey Mears was seventh in his No. 13 Germain Racing Chevrolet. Matt Kenseth was eighth in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Denny Hamlin was ninth in his No. 11 JGR Toyota. Clint Bowyer rounded out the top-10 in his No. 15 HScott Motorsports Chevrolet.

Vickers posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 95.336 mph. Newman was second at a speed of 95.128. Kyle Larson, who was 15th in practice in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, was third at a speed of 95.003 mph.

The Sprint Cup Series will be back on track this afternoon at 1 p.m. for final practice.

Complete NSCS Second Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway:

April 2, 2016
Blaney: Bubba’s First Mistake was Being a Vols Fan

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Critiquing Bubba’s performance with the Vols, Ryan Blaney said his first mistake was “being a fan of the Vols.”

During his media availability at Martinsville Speedway yesterday, the driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford was asked if he had gotten around to analyzing Darrell Wallace Jr.’s performance with the Tennessee Volunteers when he was practicing with the team in Knoxville, Tennessee the previous week.

“The first thing he made a mistake on was being a fan of the Vols,” said Blaney, who is an adamant fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes. “I haven’t critiqued him yet. I saw a video of him completely miss a pass. I don’t think he got a hand on the ball or it went right through his hands, so that was funny – how terrible of an athlete he is (laughing). No, he’s a pretty good athlete. That’s cool. I saw him do that and I’m like, ‘Man, I’d like to do that with Ohio State,’ so maybe that will kind of sway me to go do it, but I haven’t critiqued him yet. I haven’t given him too hard of a time for it.”

During the session, he also spoke of what it was like for the Wood Brothers to be back at the track for the first time since 2011.

“It’s nice to be back at Martinsville with the Wood Brothers team. It’s nice to be back at pretty much their home track. Stuart, Virginia is only 20 miles away from here, not even, so it’s cool to be back here and with those guys and kind of have everybody out and see everything. I think Glenn (Wood) is gonna be able to make it on Sunday, which it’s really gonna be nice to get him to another race, so hopefully, that will go well for him.”

Speaking on his two top-10 finishes this season, Blaney said he “set a goal at the beginning of the year to run all the laps and that hasn’t come true, so that goal is kind of out the window. It’s good to have a couple top-10’s and have some strong runs. I always say there are some races you wish you could take back, like Atlanta and Fontana a couple of weeks ago. We blew a tire, but those are just problems you have to minimize and it stinks; you have two of them early off in the year, but you try to learn from them as much as you can and try to grow from them and try to not have those happen again. We’ll do our best to try to make that happen, but it’s nice to know we have fast race cars.”

“We’ve had fairly good cars every single weekend,” he continued, “and we’re just getting better every single weekend. As we work together, as this team kind of bonds – this is a fairly new team. We brought on a handful of new guys in the beginning of the season. We kept most of the Wood Brothers personnel that has been there for a long time, but we brought in some new people just to help out with the full-time gig because it’s a lot more work. They’re just kind of getting acclimated to each other. They do a great job of working together already, but just the more they work together the stronger that relationship is gonna be and I think it will get a lot smoother from there on out, but it’s been a good start to the year so far.”

April 2, 2016
Cole Custer Fastest in Final Truck Practice

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– In case you missed it, Cole Custer topped the chart in final Camping World Truck Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.

The driver of the No. 00 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 19.788 and a speed of 95.694 mph followed by John Hunter Nemechek in second in his No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet with a time of 19.826 and a speed of 95.511 mph. Ben Rhodes, who topped the speed charts in the second practice, was third in the final session in his No. 41 ThorSport Racing Toyota with a time of 19.837 and a speed of 95.456 mph. Kyle Busch was fourth in his No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota with a time of 19.863 and a speed of 95.333 mph while Spencer Gallagher rounded out the top-five in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.881 and a speed of 95.247 mph.

Daniel Suárez was sixth in his No. 51 KBM Toyota while Kaz Grala was seventh in his No. 33 GMSR Chevrolet. William Byron (fastest in the first practice) was eighth in his No. 9 KBM Toyota. Kyle Larson was ninth in his No. 24 GMSR Chevrolet and Johnny Sauter rounded out the top-10 in his No. 21 GMSR Chevrolet.

Busch ran the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 93.793 mph. Larson was second at a speed of 93.416 mph. Nemechek was third at a speed of 93.394 mph.

The Truck Series is back on track this morning at 11:15 for qualifying.

Second NCWTS Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway

First NCWTS Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway

April 2, 2016