Joey Logano paces Cup Series practice at Gateway

An eventful practice for the NASCAR Cup Series at World Wide Technology Raceway ended with Team Penske’s Joey Logano topping the speed charts.

Logano led the session with a late flyer of 136.753 miles per hour around the 1.25-mile oval outside St. Louis, which hosts its inaugural Cup race Sunday.

Logano’s teammates, Ryan Blaney (136.260 mph) and Austin Cindric (136.104 mph), were second and third on the speed chart.

23XI Racing’s Kurt Busch (136.096 mph) and Petty GMS Motorsports’ Erik Jones (136.001 mph) completed the top five speeds.

NASCAR Cup Series at WWT Raceway – Practice Speeds

The first half of the session saw multiple drivers, including William Byron, Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace, suffer left-rear tire failures.

Additionally, Camping World Truck Series champion Ben Rhodes – who’s driving A.J. Allmendinger‘s Cup car while Allmendinger runs his full-time Xfinity Series ride at Portland International Raceway today and tomorrow – crashed in Turn 3.

Then there was NASCAR on NBC’s own Parker Kligerman, who had to make a quick exit from his No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford after it caught on fire in the garage.

“It’s funny because Bubba Wallace was in front of me with a left rear down smoking, so I didn’t know if it was his smoke or my smoke – and then it was like, ‘Oh no, this is us,'” Kligerman told Fox Sports about the moments before he entered the garage and the fire broke out on his Ford.

The rest of the session went without incident after that.

The Cup weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway continues Saturday with qualifying at 11 a.m. ET. Coverage is on FS1.

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Joey Logano paces Cup Series practice at Gateway originally appeared on NBCSports.com