Daytona Beach, Fla. — They don’t pay to win practice, but Team Ford Racing driver Robby Gordon was almost as happy as if they did. The owner/driver of the No. 7 Ford was fastest in Thursday afternoon’s second Nextel Cup practice session leading into Saturday night’s Pepsi Nextel Cup 400. His was one of five Fusions among the top-20 at Daytona International Speedway.
David Gilliland (Robert Yates Racing) was sixth, Jamie McMurray (Roush Fenway Racing) was ninth, Greg Biffle, (RFR) was 16th, and Ricky Rudd (RYR) was 19th in the late-afternoon session. David Ragan (RFR) was 22nd and Carl Edwards (RFR) and Bill Elliott (Wood Brothers Racing) were 25th and 26th. Matt Kenseth (RFR) was 35th and Boris Said (SoBe Racing) 41st. Qualifying on Friday afternoon will set the 43-car grid for Saturday night’s 160-lap, 400-mile race.
There were some radical differences between the first and second sessions. Biffle was third in the first session, Gordon was 11th, Edwards 18th, and McMurray and Ragan 22nd and 23rd. Kenseth, Rudd and Elliott were 30th, 31st and 32nd in the first session, with Said at 40th and Gilliland 43rd.
Gordon was especially pleased with his run since Camping World is on his Ford for the first of three races this year.
“This same car has won practice three of the last four times it’s been out there,” he said. “It was fastest in both sessions at Talladega [Superspeedway] in April and now here. This is a good car; I know it’s a good car and I’m hoping it’ll run like I know it can.
“We did some stuff toward the end [of the second session], so it might not qualify so well, but we think it’ll race well. We’ve been pretty good the past five or six races; we should have been top-10 in some races. But something always seems to happen and we don’t get those good finishes. I’ve told people that I want to work my way to the other side of the garage [where the higher-rated teams are housed] within a few weeks. Really, I think we’ll be there.”
