Brian Vickers Paces First Practice at Pocono as Weepers Appear - Speedway Digest

Brian Vickers set the pace during the first practice session of the weekend with a time of 49.764 seconds at 179.986 mph. The current track record of 180.223 mph was set by Joey Logano in 2012.

Vickers set a time that was several tenths of a second quicker than the rest of the field early in practice, but then Brad Keselowski came out with less than five minutes left in the session and set a sub-50 second lap. The No. 55 Toyota went back out and was able to set a time that would have become the track record.

During the first practice, weepers appeared on the track in Turn One and Turn Three. Originally, NASCAR was looking at the weeper in Turn One which appeared on the apron near the entrance of the corner. Then, after examining the track, NASCAR officials found another weeper in Turn Three. The weeper in Turn Three took longer to dry compared to the one in Turn One as the Air Titan had to come out to dry the spot on the track.

Pocono Raceway was repaved in 2012 after paving just one portion of Turn Three back in 2011. The track is in an area which the weather is an issue. However, it did not rain at Pocono Raceway on Friday even though the sky was filled with cumulous clouds throughout the day.

Drivers were reporting tight conditions throughout practice. Austin Dillon radioed into his team that the car was plowing as he was going back to the gas in the corners. Besides Keselowski, the next highest Ford was 17^th with Carl Edwards who was outside of the top-20 for the majority of practice.

Reed Sorenson ran the most laps with a total of 20 in Friday’s session. After running ARCA Series practice, Kyle Larson was 10^th after running 17 laps.

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Joseph Wolkin

Joseph Wolkin (@JosephNASCAR) is a sophomore at the Queensborough Community College as an English major. He’s a native of Whitestone, NY, just outside of New York City, and has been attempting to find roots of motorsports within his area since 2004. He started out as just a fan, but over the course of his high school career, he ended up falling in love with writing.
Joseph has been covering NASCAR since 2011 for several different websites. Recently, he was named as one of two lead NASCAR columnists for Rant Sports after working for the site for over one year. Working with Rant Sports for approximately 14 months, Joseph has covered New York City area sports teams such as the New York Giants, New York Mets, New York Rangers, New York Islanders and more.
Through his passion is for NASCAR, Joseph has adapted to changing times and realizes that he has numerous opportunities in the journalism work. As one of the top young sports writers, his goal is to become one of the top motorsports writers of this new digital media era. However, he also believes that it’s important to stick to the traditional routers of print publications after seeing his high school newspaper dissolve due to a lack of funding.
Currently, besides his duties with Speedway Digest, Joseph is a columnist with Fronstretch.com, Motorsport.com and has a weekly article in NASCAR Pole Position's digital version - ROAR! Weekly Race Preview Magazine.