Spire Motorsports teammates Carson Hocevar and Michael McDowell set the pace for NASCAR Cup Series practice at Phoenix Raceway right at the start of the session, and no one could beat it.
The two ran their fastest laps on their respective first laps on track. Hocevar topped the leaderboard at 132.533mph (27.163s) with McDowell ending up second fastest at 132.523mph (27.165s).
23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick was third fastest at 132.499mph, Austin Cindric was fourth at 132.489mph and Chris Buescher completed the top five at 132.329mph.
William Byron ran sixth at 132.120mph, Denny Hamlin was seventh at 131.984mph and Erik Jones eight at 131.878mph, Christopher Bell ninth at 131.854mph and John Hunter Nemechek 10th at 131.839mph.
Bell is the defending race winner at Phoenix. He and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team are also looking for their third consecutive Cup Series win after triumphs at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Circuit of The Americas.
There were no incidents in practice. Cup Series teams had one 45-minute session because Goodyear brought the option tire for the weekend. There was one set of options to use during practice, and teams will have two sets for Sunday’s race.
Joey Logano, who won at Phoenix in the fall, was 11th fastest in practice. Bubba Wallace was 12th, Ryan Blaney 14th and Alex Bowman 15th. Ross Chastain, whose last Cup Series win was at Phoenix in the fall of 2023, was 18th.
Chase Elliott was 20th fastest, Kyle Busch 21st, and Chase Briscoe was 22nd. Kyle Larson was 26th, Shane van Gisbergen ran 31st, and Josh Berry was 34th.
Katherine Legge was 37th fastest out of 37 cars. Legge is making her Cup Series debut with Live Fast Motorsports.
McDowell paced the best 10 consecutive lap average over Reddick, Cindric, Chastain, and Byron.
NEXT: Cup Series single-car qualifying for the Shriners Children’s 500.
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