Ryan Blaney tops Friday's final practice at Bristol Dirt Track

Blaney, who won last weekend’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, posted his session-leading fastest average lap speed (89.232 mph) early in the 50-minute practice.

“It was rough, slick. Really rough, actually,” Blaney said of Bristol . “The track is kind of coming up and there are crazy big divots. It’s definitely not smooth.

“You just run through things that you think will work. There wasn’t really much lane-changing going on. (Kyle) Larson and (Tyler) Reddick could run the top for a while and then that kind of went away after a handful of minutes.

“We’re just trying to keep tires on it. We’re seeing a lot of tires cording pretty quickly, especially right-rears. Right-fronts started to go pretty quick, too. That’s something that’s going to come into play is saving your tires.”

Bowman’s fast lap (89.135 mph) came in the session’s final minutes. Bowman also had the fastest average lap speed in Friday’s first practice. Denny Hamlin ended up third-fastest (88.985 mph).

The practice was marred by a lot of dust from the dirt surface and several times during the session, various drivers complained about problems seeing out of their windshields.

“At the moment, it’s pretty dusty. Everything that is not black right now is pretty dusty,” Bowman said. “They’re in a tough spot with all the rain coming in and doing the best they can.

“I had a blast. I still thought it was a lot of fun.”

Joey Logano and Chase Briscoe rounded out the top-five.

Completing the top-10 single-lap speeds were Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell, William Byron and Kyle Busch.

Midway through the practice, Larson reported that the water temperature had spiked in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Eventually the team decided to change engines, which means Larson will have to start Sunday’s race from the rear of the field regardless of where he finishes in Saturday’s heat races.

Among the drivers who ran at least 10 consecutive laps, Larson had the fastest average lap speed. He was followed by Hamlin, Tyler Reddick, Elliott and Bowman.

There were only a couple of on track incidents, with one involving Kurt Busch tagging the wall with his No. 1 Chevrolet.

With just under five minutes remaining in the session, Cole Custer spun off Turn 4 to bring out a quickie caution but he didn’t appear to suffer any damage to his No. 41 Ford.

Cla	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	67	20.172			89.233
2	48	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	43	20.194	0.022	0.022	89.135
3	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	80	20.228	0.056	0.034	88.986
4	22	Joey Logano		Ford	69	20.262	0.090	0.034	88.836
5	14	Chase Briscoe		Ford	51	20.313	0.141	0.051	88.613
6	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	66	20.319	0.147	0.006	88.587
7	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	54	20.320	0.148	0.001	88.583
8	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	67	20.321	0.149	0.001	88.578
9	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	57	20.410	0.238	0.089	88.192
10	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	64	20.415	0.243	0.005	88.170
11	99	Daniel Suarez		Chevrolet	40	20.428	0.256	0.013	88.114
12	20	Christopher Bell		Toyota	53	20.451	0.279	0.023	88.015
13	21	Matt DiBenedetto		Ford	54	20.460	0.288	0.009	87.977
14	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	69	20.461	0.289	0.001	87.972
15	5	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	35	20.466	0.294	0.005	87.951
16	42	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	59	20.467	0.295	0.001	87.946
17	37	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	75	20.485	0.313	0.018	87.869
18	38	Anthony Alfredo		Ford	60	20.516	0.344	0.031	87.736
19	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Chevrolet	56	20.520	0.348	0.004	87.719
20	41	Cole Custer		Ford	65	20.545	0.373	0.025	87.613
21	17	Chris Buescher		Ford	71	20.565	0.393	0.020	87.527
22	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	56	20.566	0.394	0.001	87.523
23	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	62	20.568	0.396	0.002	87.515
24	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	58	20.581	0.409	0.013	87.459
25	8	Tyler Reddick		Chevrolet	61	20.594	0.422	0.013	87.404
26	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	49	20.642	0.470	0.048	87.201
27	23	Bubba Wallace		Toyota	78	20.680	0.508	0.038	87.041
28	15	Chris Windom		Chevrolet	41	20.686	0.514	0.006	87.015
29	51	Cody Ware		Chevrolet	17	20.687	0.515	0.001	87.011
30	77	Stewart Friesen		Chevrolet	28	20.690	0.518	0.003	86.999
31	96	Ty Dillon		Toyota	49	20.723	0.551	0.033	86.860
32	43	Erik Jones		Chevrolet	43	20.732	0.560	0.009	86.822
33	53	J.J. Yeley		Chevrolet	27	20.752	0.580	0.020	86.739
34	00	Quin Houff		Chevrolet	16	20.799	0.627	0.047	86.543
35	66	Mike Marlar		Toyota	49	20.845	0.673	0.046	86.352
36	7	Corey Lajoie		Chevrolet	60	20.845	0.673	0.000	86.352
37	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	67	20.875	0.703	0.030	86.228
38	78	Shane Golobic		Ford	48	20.896	0.724	0.021	86.141