Kurt Busch tops first Cup practice at Talladega at over 202 mph

Within the first 10 minutes of the 50-minute session, Busch went to the top of the leaderboard with an average lap speed of 202.671 mph – a mark would not be eclipsed.

David Ragan ended up second (202.654 mph) and Erik Jones third (202.654 mph). Michael McDowell was fourth and Chase Elliott completed the top-five.

Rounding out the top 10 were William Byron, Ryan Newman, Kyle Busch, Ty Dillon and Jimmie Johnson.

In all, the top eight drivers posted average lap speeds over 202 mph and 21 of the 37 drivers posted an average lap speed of more than 200 mph.

This weekend is the debut of NASCAR’s new aero package at superspeedways, which includes the replacement of a restrictor-plate with a tapered spacer.

There were no incidents in the session although several drivers appeared to get loose when another car attempted to run behind them while trying to bump draft.

Cla	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	30	47.249			202.671
2	38	David Ragan		Ford	23	47.253	0.004	0.004	202.654
3	20	Erik Jones		Toyota	18	47.253	0.004	0.000	202.654
4	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	31	47.256	0.007	0.003	202.641
5	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	37	47.260	0.011	0.004	202.624
6	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	30	47.262	0.013	0.002	202.615
7	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	24	47.290	0.041	0.028	202.495
8	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	12	47.390	0.141	0.100	202.068
9	13	Ty Dillon		Chevrolet	23	47.528	0.279	0.138	201.481
10	48	Jimmie Johnson		Chevrolet	23	47.590	0.341	0.062	201.219
11	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	40	47.606	0.357	0.016	201.151
12	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Ford	20	47.719	0.470	0.113	200.675
13	47	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	18	47.730	0.481	0.011	200.629
14	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	27	47.767	0.518	0.037	200.473
15	36	Matt Tifft		Ford	23	47.769	0.520	0.002	200.465
16	41	Daniel Suarez		Ford	23	47.794	0.545	0.025	200.360
17	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	24	47.797	0.548	0.003	200.347
18	22	Joey Logano		Ford	35	47.799	0.550	0.002	200.339
19	21	Paul Menard		Ford	25	47.818	0.569	0.019	200.259
20	14	Clint Bowyer		Ford	28	47.823	0.574	0.005	200.238
21	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	28	47.823	0.574	0.000	200.238
22	88	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	29	47.900	0.651	0.077	199.916
23	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	14	48.100	0.851	0.200	199.085
24	8	Daniel Hemric		Chevrolet	13	48.112	0.863	0.012	199.036
25	42	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	28	48.195	0.946	0.083	198.693
26	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	18	48.524	1.275	0.329	197.346
27	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.		Chevrolet	16	48.552	1.303	0.028	197.232
28	37	Chris Buescher		Chevrolet	10	48.891	1.642	0.339	195.864
29	77	Justin Haley		Chevrolet	6	49.379	2.130	0.488	193.929
30	52	Stanton Barrett		Chevrolet	6	49.745	2.496	0.366	192.502
31	32	Corey Lajoie		Ford	17	50.196	2.947	0.451	190.772
32	81	Jeffrey Earnhardt		Toyota	3	50.595	3.346	0.399	189.268
33	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	5	50.985	3.736	0.390	187.820
34	62	Brendan Gaughan		Chevrolet	5	51.053	3.804	0.068	187.570
35	95	Matt DiBenedetto		Toyota	5	51.129	3.880	0.076	187.291
36	96	Parker Kligerman		Toyota	7	51.471	4.222	0.342	186.047
37	15	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	7	52.055	4.806	0.584	183.959