With a few minutes left in Friday’s first Sprint Cup practice session, Paul Menard clobbered the Turn 1 wall, damaging his car so severely that his No. 27 Richard Childress Racing team immediately rolled out a backup car.
“I think a radiator hose blew off,” said Menard, who was unhurt. “I went to hit the brakes and there was a bunch of smoke. It filled the cockpit, and it just wouldn’t stop. It was a hard hit, but I’m OK.”
Menard hadn’t planned to do a mock qualifying run in the first practice, preferring not to post a high speed in the session to guarantee an early draw in Saturday’s time trials. Qualifying order is set from slowest first to fastest last, based on top speeds in first practice.
“We weren’t going to do a qualifying run, because I think we wanted to go out early to qualify,” Menard said. “The car was driving pretty good, and we were making little gains on it — all for naught.”
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