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INDIANAPOLIS - Jeff Gordon's love affair with the Brickyard is as strong as ever.
All the former Hoosier did Thursday was go out and win his second straight Brickyard 400 pole position and set a new track record, also for the second year.
His speed of 176.419 puts him in the No. 1 position for Saturday's third running of the race and now gives him a win and two pole positions in three years.
"I keep saying that magic things keep happening for me at Indianapolis, and this is another one of those magical things," Gordon said. "I don't know where it came from. I just know I was driving with my heart and trying to get the best lap I could."
Gordon was born in Indiana, but moved away many years ago and eventually found himself running stock cars down south, which he thought would never give him a chance to run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
But that changed a few years ago with the evolution of the Brickyard 400: now he will be running his third race here come Saturday.
"It was a dream for many years for me of running at this race track," Gordon said. "I never thought I would ever run a lap around here, especially when I started running Winston Cup cars. But when they told me I was going to start running the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis, it lit a fire and spark in me."
Before Gordon went out on his qualifying run Thursday, 42 cars had gone before him and most had already surpassed his record of 172-plus mph set in winning the pole last year. He knew the track was running fast, but he didn't know if it was fast enough for him.
He had to beat Mark Martin, who was sitting on the pole with a speed of 175.922.
Just before Gordon went on his record run, the cloud cover that had given the previous drivers a nice cool track to run on had lifted and he was facing a sun, beating down on him.
But as it turned out, it was just another challenge for Gordon, who has won six races this year and leads the Winston Cup point standings.
"We were looking for the clouds and praying for the clouds because we thought we needed any clouds we could get to get as much as speed out of it as we could," Gordon said. "This is a tough place with these stock cars. It is not wide open and not flat out. You have to drive harder in the corners. You have to feel uncomfortable most of the time you are out there."
Gordon's love affair with the race track seems to be returned two-fold from the fans that flock around to see the "good ol' boys."
Chants of "Jeff, Jeff, Jeff" and "We want Jeff" followed Gordon as he left the garage area Thursday and tried to get to his equipment trailer.
He finally made it after signing a ton of autographs and doing almost as many interviews.
The love affair between Gordon and the speedway certainly goes both ways.
