Jeff Gordon paced a rain shortened opening practice session at the Martinsville Speedway on a gloomy Friday in Virginia.
With the 48 Nextel Cup contenders in attendance this weekend at the half-mile paperclip shaped Martinsville Speedway only able to get a handful of practice laps in due to the schedule altering autumnal showers the current points leader managed to outpace his rivals despite running just three laps.
The driver of the #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was the only driver under the 20-second bracket in practice, which was delayed then shortened by rain as NASCAR showed some admirable flexibility in shuffling the various Cup and Craftsman Truck Series practice sessions in order to ensure Bud Pole qualifying went ahead as planned.
Still smarting about his narrow defeat to teammate Jimmie Johnson in April's race at Martinsville Gordon will be determined to increase his 68-point advantage over Johnson in the standings and inch even closer to his fifth Championship in the sixth of ten Chase for the Championship races.
BAM Racing's John Andretti pulled out the biggest surprise of the session as he placed the #49 Dodge second on the speed charts as the best ‘go or go home' driver while Tony Raines, Chase contender Jeff Burton and Jeff Green completed the top five.
Ward Burton made a rare appearance in the top ten as he placed the beleaguered #4 Morgan McClure Chevrolet sixth overall with title hopefuls Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr and that man Johnson completing the top ten.
Of the remaining five Chase contenders Tony Stewart was 12th fastest, Kyle Busch 16th, Carl Edwards 30th, Kurt Busch 35th and Matt Kenseth 43rd while Dale Earnhardt Jr began his five race stint without Tony Eury Jr as his crew chief with 38th fastest time.
