BROOKLYN, Mich. – It wasn’t a record, but Jeff Gordon still was the fastest man at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday.
A day after turning the fastest lap in track history and seventh fastest pole speed in NASCAR history, Gordon was the only driver to record a lap faster than 200 mph in the final practice session for Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series Pure Michigan 400.
Gordon, seeking his first win here since June 2001, had a lap of 200.156 on Saturday, eight-hundredths of a second faster than Kyle Larson. It came a day after he shattered the track record with a 206.558 circuit in the final qualifying session in the same car he drove to victory last month at Indianapolis.
Gordon and his Hendrick Motorsports teammates have to be hoping for the same kind of luck they had here in June, when Johnson recorded his first career win here and Kasey Kahne, Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished sixth through eighth.
All four drivers are in the top 16 of the standings with three races to go before the start of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Only Kahne, who started the weekend 13th in the standings, has yet to guarantee a spot in the grid with a victory.
Joey Logano, who’ll start next to Gordon on Sunday, had a lap of 198.785—sixth-fastest overall—in the final practice session.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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