NXS: Erik Jones Leads First Practice

Michigan native Erik Jones put down the fastest lap in the first NASCAR XFINITY Series practice from Michigan International Speedway.

Jones’ fast lap of 37.482 was just under half a tenth of quicker than second-place Ty Dillon at 37.523. Jones has already secured his spot in the 12-man Chase with two wins this year, while Dillon is still looking for his first.

The next three spots were all held by Sprint Cup drivers and former MIS winners.

Joey Logano was third in practice. Logano won at MIS driving for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2012. Now driving for Roger Penske, he is still looking for his first win of the season in both the Sprint Cup Series and XFINITY Series.

The 2014 race winner at Michigan, Paul Menard, was fourth in practice. Menard will be starting his fourth race of the season driving for Richard Childress, and is also looking for his first win of the year.

Kyle Busch rounded out the top-five in practice. Busch won this race last year, and is no stranger to XFINITY Series victory lane. With 80 series wins and four this year, Busch boasts the most series wins, but is hungry to score another one on Saturday.

Brendan Gaughan, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, Elliott Sadler and Justin Allgaier finished out the top-10 in the session.

A bizarre caution lasting about 12 minutes meant teams lost valuable track time due to a groundhog loose on the track. Yes, a groundhog. The groundhog was caught by track officials once, and as they tried to let it go outside of the track, the groundhog got away and was again scurrying around the track. It took another five minutes and a team of four track officials to corner the groundhog on the backstretch, but the groundhog was caught, and practice resumed.

Four of the 40 cars didn’t make it out onto the track for the first session – Josh Williams in a second Jimmy Means car, BJ McLeod, Josh Wise and Jeff Green.