Polesitter Kyle Larson and 13th-place starter Chase Elliott both had brushes with the outside wall during Saturday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Auto Club Speedway.
The damage to the right side of Larson’s No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet SS was cosmetic, and in short order his team had the series leader back on track.
Elliott’s issue was more serious. Shortly after he posted the fastest lap in the session at 187.480 mph, the No. 24 Chevy’s contact with the wall pushed the right rear quarter panel into the rear deck lid and knocked the deck lid out of kilter.
As Final Practice ended, Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports team was evaluating possible chassis damage and trying to repair the car, but a final decision hadn’t been made as to whether Elliott will have to go to a backup and lose his starting spot in Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX).
“We had a part come loose on the left front, and it’s obviously something that needs to be together to make laps,” Elliott said of the cause of the accident. “I’m not real sure why it broke or why that happened. It was nothing fancy that we were doing. I was getting into (Turn) 3 at the time.
“I don’t know if it was some sort of roughness to the race track that bounced it loose, or what. I was really happy with the NAPA Chevy throughout that run. Unfortunately, this now puts us behind. But we’ll look into it and try to get this car fixed for tomorrow. We would love to keep this primary car. I don’t know if we can or not. I know they’ll work hard and try to get it tuned up for tomorrow.”
Both Busch brothers also had issues in final practice, with Kyle spinning late in the session and Kurt brushed the wall with his No. 41 Ford Fusion late in the final minutes.
The final 10 minutes of Saturday morning’s first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Auto Club Speedway provided unwelcomed excitement for drivers Kevin Harvick and David Ragan.
With roughly 10 minutes left in the 55-minute early-morning session, Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Fusion scraped the wall in Turn 4.
Harvick drove the car back to the garage, where the team began repairing the cosmetic damage to the right side to avoid going to a backup car and losing the seventh-place starting position earned in Friday’s qualifying session.
With three body men at the race track, the No. 4 team had ample time to fix the damage.
Ragan wasn’t as lucky. With time running out in the session, the driver of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford Fusion pounded the Turn 3 wall after cutting a tire and destroyed the race car.
Forced to use a backup, Ragan will drop from his 27th starting position to the rear of the field for the green flag in Sunday’s Auto Club 400.
“We just cut a left-rear tire going down the back straightaway, and I tried to start slowing it down as quick as I could and just couldn’t slow it down fast enough,” Ragan said of the incident. “By the time I got to Turn 3, I was wrecking before I even got to the corner.
“It’s certainly unfortunate. I felt like our Camping World Ford was pretty decent. We made a few adjustments and hadn’t put new tires on yet, and I felt like our speeds hadn’t fallen off a lot, so it’s unfortunate.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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