Kyle Larson leads second Cup practice at Las Vegas

The first of two practices on Saturday ran for 55 minutes. With it taking place in the morning and under overcast skies, some considered it a 'throwaway' session.

Austin Dillon, Kyle Larson and Joey Gase had to serve 15-minute practice holds due to being late to the pre-qualifying inspection line.

Ryan Newman shot to the top of the board in the early minutes with a lap of 187.454mph and led the majority of the session. However, with less than 20 minutes to go, Larson supplanted him and put the No. 42 on top (187.559mph) before having to serve his penalty. Newman, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Alex Bowman rounded out the top five.

“The car is really good. We tested here about a month ago and were fast and got a good balance on our car," said Larson. I think this practice we were just kind of chasing the track a little bit. I was loose the first few runs we did and worked on tightening it up and then we put a set of stickers on there a few laps there at the end, ran a fast lap, but I built tight really fast. So, I think if we would have just waited to practice and left the same set-up on there to start we would have been fine. The track just went through a lot of changes, transition I think.”

Pole-sitter Ryan Blaney was sixth, Darrell Wallace Jr. seventh, Clint Bowyer eighth, Michael McDowell ninth, and defending Las Vegas winner Martin Truex Jr. clocked in tenth.

Erik Jones ran the most laps at 45.

Denny Hamlin had an eventful practice, initially complaining about his car bottoming out mid-corner. "It still has a freer sensation on entry but once I get into the center it just crashes. Same thing as last year," he told the team.

Later, he brought out a caution after cutting a right front tire and spitting debris onto the track from a brake duct that came apart.

"I heard a pop and then it started steering funny," Hamlin reported. He eventually returned to the race track for more practice and ended up 22nd on the board, completing 12 laps.

Joey Logano also had a bit of a moment, forced to check-up abruptly when he came up on the very slow moving No. 55 machine of Joey Gase. 

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	17	28.791			187.559
2	31	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	32	28.807	0.016	0.016	187.454
3	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	26	28.941	0.150	0.134	186.587
4	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	10	29.089	0.298	0.148	185.637
5	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	31	29.125	0.334	0.036	185.408
6	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	24	29.138	0.347	0.013	185.325
7	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	14	29.139	0.348	0.001	185.319
8	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	30	29.141	0.350	0.002	185.306
9	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	25	29.173	0.382	0.032	185.103
10	78	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	39	29.174	0.383	0.001	185.096
11	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	31	29.177	0.386	0.003	185.077
12	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	28	29.197	0.406	0.020	184.951
13	22	Joey Logano	Ford	28	29.200	0.409	0.003	184.932
14	95	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	35	29.217	0.426	0.017	184.824
15	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	22	29.218	0.427	0.001	184.818
16	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	29	29.223	0.432	0.005	184.786
17	6	Trevor Bayne	Ford	20	29.231	0.440	0.008	184.735
18	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	45	29.237	0.446	0.006	184.697
19	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	30	29.238	0.447	0.001	184.691
20	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	27	29.246	0.455	0.008	184.641
21	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	26	29.248	0.457	0.002	184.628
22	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	22	29.261	0.470	0.013	184.546
23	51	Cole Custer	Chevrolet	20	29.316	0.525	0.055	184.200
24	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	29	29.331	0.540	0.015	184.106
25	41	Kurt Busch	Ford	18	29.364	0.573	0.033	183.899
26	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	27	29.380	0.589	0.016	183.799
27	21	Paul Menard	Ford	34	29.387	0.596	0.007	183.755
28	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	26	29.499	0.708	0.112	183.057
29	38	David Ragan	Ford	32	29.515	0.724	0.016	182.958
30	32	Matt DiBenedetto	Ford	26	29.541	0.750	0.026	182.797
31	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	32	29.578	0.787	0.037	182.568
32	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	17	29.584	0.793	0.006	182.531
33	72	Cole Whitt	Chevrolet	11	30.249	1.458	0.665	178.518
34	15	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	21	30.258	1.467	0.009	178.465
35	23	Gray Gaulding	Toyota	21	30.576	1.785	0.318	176.609
36	00	Jeffrey Earnhardt	Chevrolet	22	31.034	2.243	0.458	174.003
37	55	Joey Gase	Chevrolet	10	31.104	2.313	0.070	173.611