Reigning Xfinity Series champion Austin Cindric was fastest in Friday’s Xfinity practice at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
Cindric, last week’s winner at Dover, posted the fastest lap at 2 minutes, 17.778 seconds. But with several cautions in the session, he was only able to log eight laps around the 3.41-mile road course.
“A lot to go over tonight, a short amount of data,” Cindric told FS1 after the session. “I did a lot of outs and ins. We made a lot of changes, tires fall off a lot, so I wasn’t happy with any of them (laughs). I’ll try to go through the data and come up with the best game plan for tomorrow.”
Xfinity Series at COTA practice speeds
Daniel Hemric had an early power steering issue, but still posted the second-fastest lap (2:17.845).
Cup regulars Tyler Reddick (2:17.963) and Kyle Busch (2:17.989) followed in third and fourth, respectively. AJ Allmendinger, who is also running Sunday’s Cup race, was fifth-fastest (2:18.610).
Among the other Cup regulars, Cole Custer was 15th-fastest (2:19.888), Kevin Harvick was 17th-fastest (2:20.139), and Austin Dillon was 28th-fastest (2:21.662).
Kris Wright and Ryan Sieg have been confirmed for engine changes following Friday’s session.
Next up for Xfinity is qualifying Saturday at 11:05 a.m. ET (FS1). Forty-three cars are going for 36 spots in the field for Saturday afternoon’s race (4 p.m. ET, FS1).