Kevin Harvick fastest in Saturday's first Cup practice at Fontana

Harvick’s average lap speed of 175.867 mph topped the leaderboard and he set the mark very early in the 50-minute session.

Kyle Busch was second fastest (175.773 mph) and Brad Keselowski was third (175.644 mph). Martin Truex Jr. and Daniel Hemric completed the top-five.

“Auto Club Speedway is by far one of my favorite tracks we go to. It’s top three on my list as far as tracks that I’m excited to go to, just for the fact that the asphalt is so worn out,” Harvick said.

“It is very similar to Atlanta in a much different shape of a race track. It’s a very unique race track because it is so wide and you have so many options to run all over the race track. When you add in the tire falloff, then it becomes strategy.

“There are so many things that come into play, but it has become a great race and a great race track to race on.”

Harvick has one career win at Auto Club, coming in 2011. In his last two starts at the track, he’s finished no better than 13th and wrecked early in last year’s event.

Rounding out the Top 10 speeds in practice were Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon and Chris Buescher.

With about nine minutes left in the session, Kyle Larson appeared to tag the wall in Turn 4 while racing around Denny Hamlin but the damage did not appear to be extensive.

Keselowski had the fastest average lap speed of all the drivers who ran at least 10 consecutive laps.

Cla	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	22	40.940			175.867
2	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	37	40.962	0.022	0.022	175.773
3	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	34	40.992	0.052	0.030	175.644
4	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	16	41.014	0.074	0.022	175.550
5	8	Daniel Hemric		Chevrolet	37	41.047	0.107	0.033	175.409
6	22	Joey Logano		Ford	28	41.080	0.140	0.033	175.268
7	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	29	41.125	0.185	0.045	175.076
8	88	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	26	41.131	0.191	0.006	175.050
9	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	23	41.162	0.222	0.031	174.919
10	37	Chris Buescher		Chevrolet	28	41.181	0.241	0.019	174.838
11	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	33	41.222	0.282	0.041	174.664
12	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	22	41.235	0.295	0.013	174.609
13	20	Erik Jones		Toyota	28	41.268	0.328	0.033	174.469
14	41	Daniel Suarez		Ford	31	41.283	0.343	0.015	174.406
15	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	14	41.294	0.354	0.011	174.359
16	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.		Chevrolet	29	41.330	0.390	0.036	174.208
17	14	Clint Bowyer		Ford	25	41.353	0.413	0.023	174.111
18	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Ford	22	41.363	0.423	0.010	174.069
19	48	Jimmie Johnson		Chevrolet	33	41.425	0.485	0.062	173.808
20	95	Matt DiBenedetto		Toyota	27	41.438	0.498	0.013	173.754
21	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	25	41.439	0.499	0.001	173.749
22	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	30	41.496	0.556	0.057	173.511
23	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	26	41.509	0.569	0.013	173.456
24	21	Paul Menard		Ford	34	41.513	0.573	0.004	173.440
25	13	Ty Dillon		Chevrolet	27	41.522	0.582	0.009	173.402
26	42	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	23	41.532	0.592	0.010	173.360
27	32	Corey Lajoie		Ford	14	41.570	0.630	0.038	173.202
28	47	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	22	41.571	0.631	0.001	173.198
29	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	24	41.646	0.706	0.075	172.886
30	38	David Ragan		Ford	10	41.811	0.871	0.165	172.203
31	15	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	7	42.099	1.159	0.288	171.025
32	36	Matt Tifft		Ford	6	42.292	1.352	0.193	170.245
33	00	Landon Cassill		Chevrolet	14	42.724	1.784	0.432	168.524
34	51	Cody Ware		Chevrolet	16	42.741	1.801	0.017	168.457
35	27	Reed Sorenson		Chevrolet	11	43.160	2.220	0.419	166.821
36	77	Garrett Smithley		Chevrolet	12	43.590	2.650	0.430	165.175
37	52	B.J. McLeod		Ford	7	43.939	2.999	0.349	163.864
38	66	Joey Gase		Toyota	10	45.878	4.938	1.939	156.938