Race Central

In a knockout qualifying session dominated by Hendrick Motorsports on Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway, the outgoing king of restrictor-plate time trials—Jeff Gordon—won the pole position for Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500, the final race in the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Timothy Peters finished Saturday’s fred’s 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Talladega Superspeedway exactly where he started—at the front of the pack—despite an extraordinary ebb and flow between the opening green flag and the checkers.

Let’s be honest. Trying to predict which eight drivers will make it through the characteristic chaos of Talladega Superspeedway to advance to the Eliminator Round of the Chase is next to impossible. With only 25 points separating the top eight contenders and the looming likelihood of the almost inevitable “big one,” the only thing certain is that no one is safe - except Joey Logano.

Brad Keselowski topped the charts in the final practice session. The driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford was the fastest in final practice with a time of 48.752 and a speed of 196.423 mph.

The driver of the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford was the fastest in the session with a time of 47.597 and a speed of 201.189 mph.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the Camping World Truck Series travel to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend while the XFINITY Series is off. All of the on-track action for the Sprint Cup Series will be broadcast on NBC Sports Live Extra. The Camping World Truck Series events can be seen on FOX and FOX Sports 1. Please see the full schedule below.

This week, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rolls into the Alabama roulette wheel that is known simply as Talladega Superspeedway for the 32nd race of the season, the fifth of the Chase and the final race of the Contender Round.

Joey Logano goes to Gatorade Victory Lane in the Hollywood Casino 400 for the second year in a row in Kansas, but not without controversy.

Joey Logano took the other Talladega golden ticket after scoring the victory in America's heartland.

In Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway, Busch brushed aside a pit road speeding penalty, a hole in the nose of his No. 54 Toyota, a pit stop that dropped him to seventh for the penultimate restart, an unwelcome green-white-checkered-flag restart and a teammate who had the fastest car for much of the afternoon.