See both the morning and afternoon test session results from Day Two Preseason Thunder testing of NASCAR‘s Gen-Six cars at Daytona International Speedway

2013 Daytona Preseason Thunder Day Two Morning Test Session Summary

Richard Childress Racing teams look promising at Daytona testing with their top speeds dominating the top-five in Sprint Cup’s day two testing of the Gen-6 car.  Jeff Burton‘s lap speed of 194.805-mph was at the top of the speed chart during Friday morning’s test session.

Behind Burton was his RCR teammate Kevin Harvick running second fastest at 193.557-mph and following them were Matt Kenseth 193.121-mph third, another RCR teammate, Paul Menard 192.963 fourth, and Greg Biffle 192.719 in fifth.

Completing the top-ten fastest drivers were Kyle Busch 192.691-mph who was sixth fastest, Kurt Busch 192.575 seventh, Marcos Ambrose 192.542 eighth, Danica Patrick 192.505 ninth and yet another RCR driver, Austin Dillon 192.423 posting the tenth fastest lap speed.

The session saw two yellow flags waving, once for debris and once when Dave Blaney slammed the turn 2 wall on his exit, causing enough damage to the right side of his car, to end Tommy Baldwin Racing’s test session at Daytona. Team owner, Tommy Baldwin says they will return in February to qualify for the season opening Daytona 500.

Single car runs continued throughout the morning session with teams hesitant to take many chances drafting. But fans can expect to see at least some pack testing in this afternoon’s session so drivers can explore the aero possibilities and limitations of drafting.

Drivers and their teams will return to the track this afternoon from 1 to 5pm with television coverage by SPEED.

See full results of the morning session below the afternoon session summary

Preseason Thunder Day Two Afternoon Test Session Summary

Drivers found out in the afternoon session what happens when bump drafting with NASCAR’s Gen-6 car. Fans watched several teams drive around Daytona in pack formation, but with a gap between cars. That is until it happened coming off turn two – the big one – involving 12 cars scattered across the back stretch.

What happened? Dale Earnhardt Jr closed the gap with his No. 88 car making contact with Marcos Ambrose’s No. 9 car as they exited turn two, causing Ambrose to lose control of his car, hit the wall and slide back into traffic.

In addition to Earnhardt Jr and Ambrose, other drivers involved include, Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Regan Smith, Carl Edwards, Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr and Aric Almirola.

Normally, a push off turn two is welcomed by drivers because, it gives them more speed under race conditions. But with the bumpers having different front fenders, with the new Gen-6 cars, bump drafting may be a waning observation at Daytona.  More time, testing and perhaps more changes in the package will determine if this is the case.

For the remainder of the session, cars mainly tested single car runs.

Several of the teams involved in the 12-car wreck went home because the Gen-6 cars are few and far between with more currently in production. Carl Edwards was the only driver with a backup car available for testing.

At the end of the afternoon session, it was Trevor Bayne with the fastest drafting lap speed of 199.650-mph.

Second fastest was Joey Logano with a drafting lap speed of 199.309-mph followed by Martin Truex Jr 199.212 third, Mark Martin 199.186 fourth and Carl Edwards 199.168 fifth.

Completing the top-ten in the afternoon session with drafting lap speeds were Aric Almirola 199.084-mph sixth, Dale Earnhardt Jr 199.001 seventh, Greg Biffle 198.957 eighth, Kyle Busch 198.957 ninth and Casey Mears 198.943 tenth fastest.

Single-car speeds were in the 194-196-mph range.

Teams and drivers will return to the track Saturday for the final day of testing at Daytona before more testing at Charlotte Motor Speedway next week.

See full results of the Day Two Afternoon session below the Day Two Morning session results

Timing and Scoring provided by NASCARmedia