Trevor Bayne Paces Final Sprint Cup Practice In Texas — Tony Stewart Crashes, Will Go To Backup Car

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Smoke was all smiles during the first practice session of the weekend on Thursday, but in final practice he was forced to a backup car. Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR

By: Toby Christie – Follow on Twitter @Tobalical

The final practice session of the week is in the books for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Trevor Bayne – who’s hopes of taking home the 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series championship were dashed when sponsorship couldn’t be found this weekend – paced the session with a lap of 184.641 mph in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team Ford.

Bayne has a lot to prove, and he has plenty of incentive to want to do well this weekend – outside of the fact that he is a racecar driver.

Greg Biffle was second-quick in this session, and he was followed by Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, and A.J. Allmendinger rounded out the top-five fastest.

One of the shockers of the session was Kurt Busch who wheeled his No. 51 Phoenix Racing Chevrolet to the eighth-fastest time in the session, and Casey Mears also displayed some speed in his No. 13 GEICO Ford with the 12th fastest lap time.

The only incident of the practice session came when Tony Stewart – who won at Texas last November – slammed into the wall early in the session. The contact was severe enough to force “Smoke” – who posted the 35th-fastest time before the crash – to go to a backup car for Saturday’s race. It’ll be interesting to see how finely Steve Addington can tune Stewart’s backup car before Sprint Cup Series qualifying starts at 5:40 pm local time.

David Reutimann who has to get his No. 10 Chevrolet into the field on time because he is one point outside of the top-35 in owner points, was the second-fastest go-or-go-home driver in this session behind only Bayne who paced the session. If he mirrors that in qualifying it will get him into the field — easily. If he fails to make this race it will be very difficult for the No. 10 team to get back inside the top-35 of the owner standings before Danica Patrick returns to the car in Darlington. Of course being inside the top-35 of the owner standings guarantees a car a spot in the field for Sprint Cup Series races.

– Toby Christie is the lead Motorsports writer for Sicknissified.com, and he can be reached via twitter or email. Tweet him @Tobalical or email him at tobalical@sicknissified.com. You can also find his work at TheFinalLap.com this weekend.