Gordon cherishing run at Darlington
His final race there is Sunday night’s Southern 500.
Jeff Gordon hopes to make his fifinal Southern 500 as a full-time driver as memorable as the rest of his career at Darlington Raceway.
Gordon is third all-time with seven Darlington victories, including a record six Southern 500s. He’d love nothing more than to lock up a spot in Sprint Cup’s championship chase with another checkered flag at the track “Too Tough To Tame.”
“That would be huge,” said Gordon, who sits a precarious 13th in points for the 16-driver Chase playoffff. “I feel like we were in pretty comfortable position a month ago and we’ve just had some misfortunes.”
A win at Darlington on Sunday night would be a welcome balm for Gordon’s winless team and ease his worries about limping through the fifinal 10 races with little to race for in his farewell season.
“We defifinitely feel pressure and it’s a little bit stressful right now being on the bubble,” Gordon said Friday. “I feel like we’ve performed well enough to be securely in by points, but I can’t say we’ve performed well enough to be real confifident coming in here that we’re going to be one of the cars to beat.”
That has not happened often this season for Gordon, the 44-year-old fourtime Sprint Cup champi- on who announced earlier this year he would step away from his longtime, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports ride. He has come close — a third place at Bristol in April and at Pocono last month are his best showings this year — yet has not shown the magic and skill of last year’s run when he won four races and finished sixth in the Chase.
Some have wondered if the weekly celebration of Gordon’s career at each NASCAR stop has led to distractions.
“Honestly, I’ve had so many distractions over the years, far more distractions than I’ve had this year, and performed well,” Gordon said.
Defending Xfinity Series champion Chase Elliott will slip into the No. 24 driver seat next season after Gordon leaves.
“This is not the only place he’s dominated at,” Elliott said.
Formula One: With Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg dominating practice for the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Mercedes is on track for its 23rd consecutive pole position Saturday.
Hamilton and Rosberg finished 1-2 in both of Friday’s practice sessions.
In the afternoon, championship leader Hamilton clocked the day’s best time of 1 minute, 24.279 seconds around the Monza circuit, which features the highest speeds in Formula One.
Rosberg, the top challenger who became a father for the fifirst time last weekend, was a narrow 0.021 seconds behind.