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Posted 04/27/2012 at 04:13 PM
With less than five minutes remaining in Friday’s final Richmond practice session, Dale Earnhardt Jr laid down the fastest lap at 123.853 mph while running a mock qualifying lap. Almost half the drivers in the field used the 45 minute session to finalize their qualifying set-up after getting enough data in race trim during the two-hour session run earlier in the day.
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Carl Edwards was second fastest and captured what was the top speed (123.706) of the session during his first lap until Junior topped it. Edwards didn’t run more than two laps until the late stages of practice and finished with a total of eight laps run.
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Landon Cassill (123.209) was third fastest followed by Jeff Gordon (123.113) and Kyle Busch (122.783). Gordon gained his top speed in the last of his 11 laps run while Busch captured his in the second of his 39 laps.
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Busch has won the last three spring Richmond races, but didn’t get off to great start in the first session making it appear he might not be in too good of shape to make it four in a row. He missed out on a good run the early part of the session when the track was cool and his 23rd fastest speed from that practice doesn’t necessarily give the proper reading. Busch got better as the two-hours went on and it carried over into the final practice
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Brad Keselowski had the 12th best lap, but ran a total of 62 laps, 13 more than the next closest (Joey Logano) and he looked great doing it. Keselowski had the second best 10 consecutive lap average behind Mark Martin. Just behind Keselowski in the category was Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Busch.
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Aric Almirola also stood out in the final practice with the eighth best 10 consecutive lap average while having only 18th fastest single lap, a continuance from a strong first practice.
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Only 21 drivers ran at least 10 consecutive laps.
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