Hamlin paces First Daytona 500 Practice; Chandler Smith Leads 'Open' Cars

Taylor Kitchen | Racing America

On Wednesday morning, the NASCAR Cup Series drivers and teams were able to shake their cars down over the course of a 50-minute opening practice session ahead of Wednesday night's Daytona 500 qualifying session. Denny Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 champion, led the way in the session in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE.

Hamlin's best lap, 48.005 seconds (187.480 mph), came in the draft.

Bubba Wallace, who drives for 23XI Racing a team co-owned by Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan, was second-fastest in the session with a lap time of 48.150 seconds.

Ty Gibbs made it a clean sweep of the top-three positions for the Toyota teams in the practice session.

Chandler Smith, who is driving the No. 66 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Garage 66, a team formerly known as MBM Motorsports, clocked in fourth-fastest in the practice session. Smith is making a one-off attempt for the team after Mike Wallace, the team's orignally announced driver wasn't approved by NASCAR to compete.

While Smith's lap was turned in the draft, the speed shown by the No. 66 machine in the draft will give Smith and Carl Long, the team owner and crew chief, plenty of hope that they can clock into the Daytona 500 field in Wednesday night's draft-less Daytona 500 qualifying session (set for 8:15 PM ET on FS1).

John Hunter Nemechek was fifth-fastest in the No. 42 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Toyota Camry XSE.

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Daytona 500 Opening Practice Results

Pos	Car	Driver	Lap time	Diff	Speed
1	11	Denny Hamlin	48.005	--	187.480
2	23	Bubba Wallace	48.150	0.145	186.916
3	54	Ty Gibbs	48.291	0.286	186.370
4	66	Chandler Smith * (i)	48.341	0.336	186.177
5	42	John Hunter Nemechek	48.361	0.356	186.100

Click here for full results from Wednesday's Daytona 500 opening practice

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Rookie of the Year contender Riley Herbst was sixth-fastest in the No. 35 23XI Racing Toyota, and he was followed on the speed charts by Daniel Suarez, Noah Gragson, Erik Jones, and Kyle Busch inside the top-10.

The opening practice session of the Daytona 500 race week featured a lot of gremlins, primarily with the steering systems on several of the cars including Brad Keselowski, Ryan Preece, and AJ Allmendinger, who had smoke puffing from the front wheels of their cars early in the session.

Preece would eventually turn four laps in the session, and would record the 13th-fastest lap time. Keselowski would crank out seven laps in the session, and would slot in 15th of thr 43 cars that took a lap time in the session, and Allmendinger would be 27th on the speed charts after making six laps.

Spire Motorsports teammates Justin Haley and Michael McDowell were the only drivers not to make a lap around the 2.5-mile superspeedway during the 50-minute practice session on Wednesday morning.

While Smith was the leading driver among the nine "Open" teams, who are in danger of making the 40-car field (41, if Helio Castroneves needs to fall back on the Open Exemption Provisional).

Castroneves was the second-fastest of the "Open" drivers as he clocked in 12th in the session in the No. 91 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet.

Martin Truex Jr. (31st), Jimmie Johnson (32nd), Anthony Alfredo (34th), Justin Allgaier (36th), Corey LaJoie (41st), BJ McLeod (42nd), and JJ Yeley (43rd) were the remainder of the "Open" drivers in the practice session.

Two of the Open competitors will solidify their position in the starting lineup of Sunday's Daytona 500 by way of qualifying speed in Wednesday night's qualifying session. The other seven will have to rely on advancing to the 40-car field through the Duel Qualifier Races on Thursday night.