By Micah Roberts
Posted 04/27/2012 at 02:33 PM

It only took the first 10 minutes of the Friday’s two-hour practice session at Richmond to figure out who was the fastest and there was little doubt from everyone that that those top times couldn’t be matched due to the track getting much warmer. Mark Martin laid down the fastest lap of the session at 126.707 mph showing once again that Michael Waltrip Racing is fast on just about every track put in front of the team. ---- Greg Biffle came in second fastest (126.186) and looks like his current form holds more weight than his recent past performances at Richmond. Biffle’s last top-10 finish at Richmond came in the fall of 2006. Paul Menard was third fastest (126.139), but shortly after smacked the wall and was forced to go with their back-up car, a car they never got set properly in the short amount of time they had after finally getting it on the track. ---- 2008 Richmond winner Clint Bowyer finished with the fourth fastest lap (126.133) followed by Joey Logano (125.997) and Jimmie Johnson (125.886). ---- Brad Keselwoski ran the most laps (82) of the session and also had the eighth fastest lap. ---- The two favorites to win Saturday night’s race are Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin. Hamlin was solid with the 10th fastest lap while Busch came in 23rd. ---- The fastest average speed of the session among all drivers that ran at least 50 laps belonged to Bowyer (120.227), Marcos Ambrose (120.219) and Aric Almirola (120.202). Those who were impressive running less than 50 laps were Martin Truex Jr, Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick. Harvick had to make a transmission change during the session. Bowyer’s times are the more impressive because he ran 72 laps. ---- Matt Kenseth had the best 10 consecutive lap average followed by Bowyer and Carl Edwards, but perhaps the best sign of all was Kyle Busch coming in sixth in this category only because he did it late in the session from lap 41 through 50 while the others all did it early. ---- The final 45 minute practice session is scheduled for 2:25 pm (ET) with qualifying set to begin at 5:35 pm.