DOVER, Del. — Seeking his third NASCAR XFINITY Series win of the season, Kyle Larson led the way in opening practice at Dover Int’l Speedway on Friday morning.
The No. 42 ParkerStore Chevrolet toured the one-mile concrete oval in 23.295 seconds (154.540 mph), making just 10 laps on-track but topping the speed charts in the 55-minute session.
Larson has never won at Dover in the XFINITY Series, but does have a best finish of second at the ‘Monster Mile’, coming in the fall of 2013 for late car owner Steve Turner.
Matt Tifft jumped up to second-fastest in the final moments of the round, posting a time of 23.322 seconds (154.361 mph) in his No. 19 Tunity Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
The Hinckley, Ohio native — who turns 21 later this month — is still looking to score his first top five finish of the XFINITY season, with a best effort of sixth coming earlier this year at Talladega Superspeedway.
Ryan Blaney battled “sputtering” issues with his No. 22 Fitzgerald Glider Kits Ford all practice, but got out to post six laps in the final six minutes of the session and ended the morning third-quick (23.372/154.030).
That trio gave each manufacturer one representative among the top three on speed in the opening practice.
Reigning series champion Daniel Suarez and current points leader Elliott Sadler completed the top five.
Justin Allgaier landed sixth on the board, ahead of Cole Custer, Brandon Jones, Brennan Poole and Austin Dillon.
Star rookie William Byron was 11th, with other notables further back in the running order including Erik Jones (12th), Daniel Hemric (15th), Ty Dillon (17th) and Blake Koch (21st).
A notable incident with 21 minutes to go in the session saw Spencer Gallagher and Joey Gase get together entering Turn 3, with both drivers hitting the outside wall and sustaining enough damage to go to backup cars.
Final practice for the OneMain Financial 200 kicks off at 1:30 p.m. ET, live on FOX Sports 1.
Full practice results can be viewed on the next page…