BRISTOL, Tenn. — NASCAR announced Friday morning that Daniel Suarez, Ryan Newman, David Ragan and Bubba Wallace will be held out of the last 15 minutes of the first Cup practice.
The drivers’ cars failed prerace inspection twice at Michigan International Speedway.
The first practice for Saturday night’s Food City 500 begins at 10:35 a.m. and runs through 11:55.
Qualifying for the race is at 5:40 p.m.
On this week’s edition of the Dale Jr. Download on NBCSN, Dale Earnhardt Jr. described the thought process a driver goes through in the moments before an accident like Bubba Wallace experienced last Sunday at Pocono.
“Normally in wrecks … the hitting just starts. You don’t have time to think about ‘I’m about to hit this and it’s going to hurt,’ ” Earnhardt said.
“But in that rare situation that Bubba described where something breaks and you’ve got time to think – like you’re heading toward this wall at 180 miles per hour and you’re going to hammer that damn thing – you don’t know what the result is going to be. You do think about your ability to survive it. Are you going to die? Or you going to be injured? You think about all those things.
“You’d be surprised at what all you can cover in a mere couple of seconds.”
MORE: Bubba Wallace on wreck: ‘I didn’t know if I was going to die or not’
Earnhardt understands the relief experienced by Wallace standing outside of the infield care center. To some, it might seem macabre to joke about his ultrasound after facing potentially catastrophic injuries, but a driver can find himself in an almost jovial mood because he survived, according to Earnhardt.
For more, watch the video above.
The 69th Southern 500 is just around the corner. You only have to wait 33 days for the Sept. 2 race at Darlington Raceway, which will air on NBCSN.
That night, the latest batch of throwback paint schemes will race for our affections and the win.
MORE: Cole Custer, Jeremy Clements Xfinity throwback schemes
Here’s a roundup of the paint schemes that have been announced so far.
No. 00 – Landon Cassill: The StarCom Racing driver will pilot a car with Bobby Allison’s 1988 Miller High Life paint scheme. Derrike Cope, StarCom’s team manager, drove for Allison from 1994-96. Matt DiBenedetto drove the scheme in last year’s Southern 500.
No. 2 – Brad Keselowski: Will drive Rusty Wallace’s paint scheme from the 1990 Cup season.
No. 4 – Kevin Harvick: Will drive a scheme based on Busch Beer’s can design from 1996.
No. 9 – Chase Elliott: The Hendrick Motorsports driver will have a scheme based on one driven by his late cousin, Casey Elliott. He passed away from cancer in 1996.
No. 12 – Ryan Blaney: Will drive a scheme based on the car his father, Dave Blaney, raced in the 2003 Cup season.
No. 14 – Clint Bowyer: Bowyer will driver a paint scheme based on the car NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett drove to a win in the 1965 Southern 500.
No. 17 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr: The Roush Fenway Racing driver will have the John Deere paint scheme driven by Chad Little from 1997-2000.
No. 18 – Kyle Busch: The Joe Gibbs Racing driver will pilot the original Skittles paint scheme first driven by Ernie Irvan in 1997.
No. 20 – Erik Jones: The Joe Gibbs Racing driver will pay tribute to the Camping World Truck Series career of his spotter, Rick Carelli.
No. 21 – Paul Menard: Wood Brothers Racing will pay tribute to Cale Yarborough’s win in the 1968 Southern 500, which was the first for the team and Yarborough.
No. 22 – Joey Logano: The Team Penske driver will pay tribute to Steve Park with the Pennzoil scheme Park drove for Dale Earnhardt Inc. in the early 2000s and won two races with.
No. 24 – William Byron: Will drive Jeff Gordon‘s iconic DuPont “Rainbow Warriors” scheme he raced full-time from 1993 -2000.
No. 31 – Ryan Newman: The Richard Childress Racing driver will honor the late Neil Bonnett with his scheme. The car will be painted like the Mom & Pop’s sponsored car Bonnett drove in two Cup races in 1993. He was the first RCR driver to drive the No. 31.
No. 32 – Matt DiBenedetto: Will drive Jeff Burton‘s paint scheme from the 2000 Cup season.
No. 41 – Kurt Busch: Will drive his own paint scheme from the 2003 season when he was part of one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history at Darlington Raceway, losing to Ricky Craven by 0.002 seconds. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the race.
No. 43 – Bubba Wallace: The rookie driver will boast the first STP paint scheme Richard Petty drove in 1972 at Riverside International Speedway.
No. 48 – Jimmie Johnson: The three-time Darlington winner will drive the scheme he used in 2012 when he won the Southern 500 and gave Hendrick Motorsports its 200th victory.
No. 99 – Derrike Cope: Cope will be sponsored by Bojangles and will have the paint scheme Cope drove in the Cup Series in 1993 when sponsored by the company.
Kyle Busch — Winner: “I just can’t say enough about my teammate (Daniel Suarez). What an awesome race. He was probably the third-best car – (Kevin) Harvick was the best car and we were the second-best car and then Suárez was the third-best car. He gave us a run for our money there on those last couple restarts. The last one I spun my tires a little too much and he got a really good run and I think that gave (Erik) Jones an opportunity to make it three-wide down into one and those guys got to racing and just kind of let me get away. Just can’t say enough about Adam Stevens (crew chief) and all my guys. This Caramel Toyota Camry was awesome and had a lot of speed, but we fought it all weekend. Glad to get here and glad to get another win for all the Rowdy Nation fans out there and everybody here at Pocono. We swept the weekend and taking home both eagle trophies this week.”
DANIEL SUAREZ — Finished 2nd: “Well, I thought I was a little better than Kyle (Busch) and the 18 guys with new tires with five, seven laps or so, but in the longer runs he was better than me. He was just turning better for whatever reason. I was getting too tight and I was trying to adjust my tools as much as I can to free the car up a little bit, but it wasn’t helping the rotation – what I needed – and every restart I felt like I was decent, but, no, not great. I felt like if I was able to complete the pass by corner one I was going to be able to hold him off, but I just never had the help from behind.”
Alex Bowman — Finished 3rd: “We really struggled all weekend until today. Then the boss showed up, so maybe Mr. Hendrick just needs to come to every single race and we will all run better. It’s kind of some light at the end of the tunnel. We didn’t have the raw speed it looked like the No. 9 (Chase Elliott) did. We were a little off, but anytime all four of us are running better is a good week for us.”
Kevin Harvick — Finished 4th: “It was eventful. I think we went to the back twice and made our way back to the front each time. We made a good race out of it but it is hard to swallow on a day like that when our Mobil 1 Ford was the class of the field. You never know what is going to happen on these days. It is hard to put them together and you win some and lose some.”
Erik Jones — Finished 5th: “I think at that point, if I stayed and pushed the 19 (Suarez), I run the same spot I do now. I mean, if we make the move we did, we at least had a shot and we have a chance to go down there and clear, so we had to do what we had to do to win and that was our one chance in the Reser’s Camry and it just didn’t work out, so still a good, top five day. We ran up in the top five all day and just had a good car, so need to probably be a little bit better. I think the 4 (Harvick) was the class of the field today, but, you know, it was good to run up there in the top five and lead some laps.”
William Byron — Finished 6th: “There are a lot of big positives. I feel there are a couple of things we could have worked on and we’ll keep working on those things. Our cars are just getting faster. Now we have the speed to run in the top 10, which makes it a lot easier to do things and allows us to be more aggressive and allows me to drive the car the way I know how to drive it. I feel like our speed is just starting to get us in a position to be more aggressive, which is really good.”
CHASE ELLIOTT — Finished 7th: “I think a little bit of everything. I don’t even know why some race tracks seem to be more suitable for what we have, and some don’t. We think we’re better as a whole, but I think we still have some work to do.”
Ryan Newman — Finished 8th: “I don’t ever give up and this No. 31 Bass Pro Shops / Cabela’s Camaro ZL1 team doesn’t either. Our race was pretty frustrating to me. I knew we had a top 10 car, but we got blocked quite a bit which caused us to lose momentum and track position, especially during the middle portions of the race. All and all another solid job in the pits for the pit crew. For a while there, our track position didn’t reflect the kind of Chevy Luke Lambert and the team prepared for me, but it doesn’t matter now. We finished eighth and we’ll certainly take that result.”
Kurt Busch — Finished 9th: “We have nothing much to show for the effort but we do have a lot to show for it at the same time by going through all that adversity. I didn’t think we would get a top 10 out of today with the damage on the splitter. The left front tire was weird. It blew out halfway down the front straightaway and I was able to keep it off the wall and keep most of the damage to a minimum. The guys were able to fix me up and we just kind of battled through and took advantage of other people’s mistakes.”
Ryan Blaney — Finished 12th: “It was a long weekend. We struggled a little bit off the truck and just could never really get where we were very good. I was hopeful that we would get a little better in the race but we never really did. We have work to do. Hopefully we can get there.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 13th: “The American Ethanol Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was extremely tight through Stage 1. We made chassis adjustments that we were confident would help with handling, but when Stage 2 started it felt like I was driving a pogo stick, and by the end of Stage 2, the car was just way too loose. I have to give it to the entire No. 3 American Ethanol team for working hard and never giving up. I feel like we were actually pretty good on takeoff, so we pitted during a late-race caution for 4 scuff tires, which is all we had left. On the restart, I ended up scraping the Turn 3 Wall with the right side of my car. Luckily, I was able to continue but it killed my momentum and made the car really tight. In the end, it was a hard-earned 13th-place finish.”
Matt Kenseth — Finished 18th: “We were definitely better than the spring race when we couldn’t even stay on the lead lap. This time we had a pit road problem, sped and lost a lot of track positions. I thought we ran better, we were just really weak on restarts and would lose a lot of spots. In today’s day in age of racing it is a huge disadvantage because you just can’t get those spots back. I felt we took a step up in performance, not where we need to be yet but still a step up. The stat sheet doesn’t show it but it is a step in the right direction.”
Ty Dillon — Finished 24th: “Pocono is definitely a hard track to get a handle on. You have to be perfect in each corner on every single lap, and all of the corners are completely different from one another. It is a challenge to be able to have a car that’s set up to get through all three turns perfectly. It’s called the “Tricky Triangle” for a reason. We battled with the balance of our GEICO Camaro ZL1 on exit through all of Stage 1 and most of Stage 2. My crew chief and the team were able to get the handling closer to where we needed it to be, but we have to be there from the very beginning. We know that, and this team continues to work hard week in and week out to keep us competitive and moving in the right direction. We are going to keep digging.”
BUBBA WALLACE — Finished 33rd: “Yeah, I’m okay. Just brake failure there. It blew up going down the straightaway the right front, I believe. I can’t remember if I turned left or if it just kind of jolted to the left and I should have stayed to the right. And I went for a hellacious ride and just for about two or three seconds you can really slow it down and you are just helpless. There is nothing you can do and you are just like, please stop. And it does, it does when it hits the fence and all-in-all it was okay, knocked the wind out of me. It took me a minute to let the window net down because that was the last thing I thought about, so apologize to everybody worried about that, but just an unfortunate ending for us and our Mile 22 Chevrolet.”
Brad Keselowski — Finished 38th: “We just blew a rear tire in the corner and backed into the wall. The car wasn’t terrible but wasn’t enough to get fixed in the time that was allowed so we limped it back to the garage and they made me come to the care center. That is just the way it was today for the Alliance Ford.”
Bubba Wallace crashed hard in Turn 1 at Pocono Raceway near the end of Sunday’s race.
After losing the brakes on his No. 43 Chevrolet, Wallace skidded through into the grass and veered left while approaching the SAFER barrier, slamming it with his car’s passenger side.
“The pedal went to the floor, so I went to the bottom,” the Richard Petty Motorsports driver told NBCSN. “Your natural instinct is try to use all the track when that happens. So, went to the floor, pump it up, get through the tunnel and three here. Down into 1, I start pumping at the start-finish line, and it blew.
“I should have hooked a right into the fence up there to slow me down, but I’m used to turning left there. … So I turned left, and there she went through the grass.”
Wallace’s girlfriend, Amanda Carter, was one of many in the NASCAR industry who reacted to his crash on Twitter.
A relieved Wallace tweeted his thanks for all of the support while sitting on the plane waiting to return to Charlotte.
