DARLINGTON, S.C. - Jimmie Johnson, Reed Sorenson, Paul Menard and Robby Gordon were forced to a back-ups after crashing during Friday's practice sessions for the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway.
Johnson was forced to a back-up car first among the group after crashing in Turn 1 during the third practice session.
After posting 13th and 15th best times, respectively, in yesterday's practice sessions, Johnson went out and posted a fast time of 175.509 mph before making contact with the wall. When the practice ended the time stood fifth on the chart.
"We worked hard over the night to make some gains and we ran two of the fastest laps, those two laps, and unfortunately I crashed on my third (lap)," Johnson said. "But we're very optimistic about the gains we've made and I'm still trying to understand why we lost it."
Johnson will now race a car (chassis No. 465) that has been successful in two starts this season. It's the same chassis that finished second at California and Texas.
But the new car wasn't much better for Johnson. In the final session he spun coming off Turn 4 and came down and tapped the inner frontstretch wall, which knocked off the splitter. Crews quickly went to work on the car to get it ready for qualifying.
"I just barely grazed it so the splitter must have caught on something," Johnson said. "We won't go to another back-up."
Sorenson, Menard and Gordon all were forced to a back-ups in the final session.
Denny Hamlin topped the final session in his No. 11 Toyota with a lap of 179.651 mph. Kyle Busch (179.174), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (179.141), Kasey Kahne (178.731) and Jeff Gordon (178.510) rounded out the top five.
