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Posted 06/14/2012 at 03:12 PM
Mark Martin was the overall star in testing and practice sessions on Pocono Raceway’s newly surfaced track last week and he was at it again Thursday on Michigan’s new pavement in the early test session with a fast lap of 201.089 mph. Four drivers topped the 200 mph barrier and 39 drivers beat the track record (194.232) set by Ryan Newman in 2005.
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Needless to say, Michigan is Faster than it's ever been
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2010 Michigan winner Kevin Harvick finished with the second fastest lap (200.999) followed by Martin Truex Jr (200.306), Dale Earnhardt Jr (2000.306) and Tony Stewart (199.856).
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All three Michael Waltrip Racing drivers finished within the top-8 speeds while three of the four Hendrick drivers finished 11th or better.
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Just like last week at Pocono, the Fords appear to be a bit slower than the Chevy’s and Toyota’s. Greg Biffle had the best lap of the bunch -- good enough for ninth best, while Matt Kenseth was 17th fastest with the Petty drivers and Carl Edwards finishing 22nd, 23rd and 24th, respectively.
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Jeff Gordon ran the most laps (49) of the three hour session followed by Michigan native Brad Keselowski (47) and Earnhardt Jr (46). Only five drivers ran 10 consecutive laps or more with Kyle Busch leading that category. Busch also had the sixth fastest single lap (199.590).
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It was estimated last week by a few of the commentators that half the field used their back-up chassis for the testing and then used their primary car for the practices, qualifying and the race. So without full knowledge of what teams strategically did today, it’s hard to gauge how much we can use this test session in regards to it translating over to Sunday’s race.
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However, the teams that have speed here are likely to be fast on race day. They have something clicking right with their engine and set-up that shouldn't be too tough to recreate onto another chassis.
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The one driver that confirmed through Twitter that he was using a back-up in the testing was Keselowski.
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A driver that gave hope to the millions in his Kingdom is Earnhardt Jr, who was one of the four top to 200 mph. With Sunday being Father’s Day and Michigan being the last place he won at 144 races ago, there was a lot of hope and excitement coming into this weekend that Junior could end his winless streak. After the test session, his legion of fans can really get excited now for good cause and not just loyalty. He is fast and should be one of the drivers to beat on Sunday.
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The teams will have their final test session this afternoon from 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm (ET) before returning on Friday for their two regular practice sessions.
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