AVONDALE, Ariz. - With five cars suffering flat tires and four red flags flying for debris, Friday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 practice session at Phoenix Raceway was certainly eventful.
Fortunately, Hendrick Motorsports' remaining playoff drivers - Kyle Larson and William Byron - were (mostly) able to avoid the chaos. And both also flashed satisfactory speed, especially on long runs with Larson second in 10-lap average and Byron third. Larson also topped the board in 15-lap speed.
And yet, as expected, there's plenty on the plates of crew chiefs Rudy Fugle (Byron, No. 24 team) and Cliff Daniels (Larson, No. 5 team) after their cars took to the 1-mile doglegged oval for the first time this weekend.
For starters, Friday's tire problems are certainly worrisome. But just how they may affect setups heading into Sunday's race remains to be seen.
"You have to look at it some more and go through it," Fugle said. "Really, to be honest, I think most of the final stage strategy stuff is learned from stage one and stage two. We prepare for stage one and try to learn a bunch. Stage two is generally a similar length to stage three. You let that play out, learn on it, run your numbers.
"It's always a learning game because every session is different. Obviously, we're trying to get long runs to get that data to start with. We accomplished that. We'll be way, way different come Sunday."
ARTIFACT OF THE WEEK: Win a Hendrick Motorsports treasure chest of prizes!
While neither Hendrick Motorsports team dealt with tire issues, Larson and the No. 5 squad had a bit of a scary moment. Larson swung a little too high and grazed the fence, necessitating a little cosmetic work, though Daniels said no significant damage was sustained.
In fact, the contact with a wall is a good sign according to the No. 5 crew chief.
"In the Next Gen era, we've scuffed the wall at many tracks," Daniels said. "And finally, I started to realize there's a trend. If we're fast enough in practice, we'll move around and we'll scuff the wall. So, I tell the guys every week, 'Man, I just hope we're fast enough in practice to hit the wall.' So, checked that box."
Between Friday's extra practice session, Saturday evening's qualifying and the race on Sunday, Fugle, Daniels and the rest of the Cup Series' crew chiefs figure to be hard at work, fine tuning in search of any fraction of a second that can be found. Doing so with the weight of a championship adds another dimension, but both Fugle and Daniels have plenty of experience in that with Byron making his third Championship 4 appearance in a row and Larson making his third in the last five years.
"I think it's mostly just knowing what to expect for the most part," Fugle said. "The rest of it, there's always surprises. There's tires, falloff, times where you can run forever on tires.
"I think you're just used to it. It's more routine instead of like amped up about just the situation. So, we're excited to go out and take advantage of the opportunity, but we're not surprised by the odd situations."
And if the practice leaderboard and comments from drivers and crew chiefs are any indication, it's so far, so good for the Nos. 5 and 24 teams.
RELATED: Check out highlights from Championship 4 practice on Friday!
"I think our team is in a really good spot," Daniels concluded. "Kyle feels pretty comfortable in the car. (In practice) we were looking for a few different things throughout practice progression yesterday, trying to find the right look at short-run speed and capture a run or two focused on the medium-to-long-run pace and we certainly presented that to ourselves.
"Overall, we're in a reasonable spot. Got to make a couple of adjustments this morning. Met with the team this morning at the hotel and everybody was fresh and ready, so we're locked in."
NASCAR schedule, TV info for Phoenix
RELATED: NASCAR Championship 4 by the numbers
Saturday, Nov. 1
- 1:30 p.m. ET - ARCA West race (FloRacing)
- 3:30 - Xfinity Series qualifying (CW App)
- 5 - Cup Series qualifying (TruTV)
- 7:30 - Xfinity Series championship race (CW)
Sunday, Nov. 2
- 3 p.m. - Cup Series race (NBC)
NASCAR Cup Series practice results
- Ty Gibbs, No. 54, 27.3
- Ryan Blaney, No. 12, 27.396
- Austin Cindric, No. 2, 27.402
- Ryan Preece, No. 60, 27.407
- Denny Hamlin, No. 11, 27.426
- Chase Elliott, No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, 27.45
- Ross Chastain, No. 1, 27.452
- Josh Berry, No. 21, 27.459
- William Byron, No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet, 27.46
- Christopher Bell, No. 20, 27.487
- Kyle Larson, No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, 27.489
- Erik Jones, No. 43, 27.491
- Todd Gilliland, No. 34, 27.501
- Joey Logano, No. 22, 27.515
- Carson Hocevar, No. 77, 27.539
- Chase Briscoe, No. 19, 27.541
- Zane Smith, No. 38, 27.561
- Bubba Wallace, No. 23, 27.564
- John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42, 27.571
- Michael McDowell, No. 71, 27.577
- Austin Dillon, No. 3, 27.592
- Tyler Reddick, No. 45, 27.608
- Kyle Busch, No. 8, 27.634
- Alex Bowman, No. 48 Ally Chevrolet, 27.649
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47, 27.659
- Daniel Suarez, No. 99, 27.689
- Chris Buescher, No. 17, 27.699
- Cole Custer, No. 41, 27.707
- Riley Herbst, No. 35, 27.729
- Cody Ware, No. 51, 27.745
- AJ Allmendinger, No. 61, 27.749
- Justin Haley, No. 7, 27.761
- Noah Gragson, No. 4, 27.775
- Brad Keselowski, No. 6, 27.792
- Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88, 27.824
- Ty Dillon, No. 10, 27.863
- Casey Mears, No. 66, 28.195
- JJ Yeley, No. 44, 28.209