NXS: Erik Jones Paces Final Practice for Heads Up Georgia 250

Erik Jones has been one of the fastest cars all day throughout XFINITY Series practice, and that didn’t change in final practice. Jones put down a quick lap of 30.551 seconds to lead the way. Jones was quickest in first practice, and backed that up with a second-place effort in the second practice of the day.

The Joe Gibbs’ cars continued their quick speeds this afternoon as Kyle Busch took second in practice with a best lap of 30.641. The Gibbs’ trio of Jones, Busch and Daniel Suarez all aim to bring an XFINITY Series trophy from Atlanta home to the JGR shop for the first time.

Last week’s polesitter at Daytona, Ty Dillon, wrapped up practice in the third spot. Dillon broke up the Gibbs’ brigade with his run in third. Dillon ran more than 30 laps in the session, and was aiming to do more laps in race trim, rather than qualifying trim, as track conditions during this session will be closer to the conditions of the race tomorrow afternoon.

“It’s really important to have a good race car, so that’s what we’re really focussed on,” said Dillon. “Having enough speed for qualifying, we’ll fine tune a little bit, but really happy with the way it’s driving as far as long runs.”

Daniel Suarez was fourth in practice after leading the way in the early afternoon session. Suarez will run double duty tomorrow in both the Camping World Truck and XFINITY Series.

Kyle Larson posted a quick time in practice that was good enough for fifth. Larson looks to have a strong run in Atlanta after issues at Daytona dropping him to a 34^th place finish. The last time he raced at a 1.5 mile race in an XFINITY Series car was at Homestead where Larson scored a dominating win. The only issue Larson had in practice was a right-rear tire rub as the track opened for practice.

“Ever since we’ve built our own XFINITY cars we’ve had that problem,” said Larson. “I don’t know why, but hopefully they get that fixed, so we don’t have that issue in the race. At Texas last year, we we’re gonna win when we cut a left rear.”

Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Paul Menard, Brennan Poole and Jeb Burton rounded out the top-10 in final practice. Harvick has won the last three races at Atlanta, and will try to become the first driver to win four consecutive XFINITY Series races at Atlanta.

Todd Peck and Carl Long were the only two drivers who did not take a time in final practice.