As if Jimmie Johnson wasn't scaring the competition enough, he and teammate Jeff Gordon topped the charts during Saturday afternoon's opening practice session at the Martinsville Speedway. Running sixty-one laps - more than any other driver - Johnson was the only of the 43 drivers to break into the nineteen second bracket. Perhaps eying a late season surge, Jeff Gordon put his No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet in the second fastest spot.

The Hendrick teammates have combined to win eight of the last eleven races at the .526-mile paperclip speedway and appear to be a serious threat once again this weekend.

David Ragan posted the third fastest time of the session; however a crash going into turn one forced the team to pull out the back-up.

"I just made one mistake and now we've got to go to a back-up car," a disappointed Ragan explained. "I drove in a little bit too deep getting into turn one. I was just trying to drive as hard as I would in the race to try and give good feedback and just made a mistake and didn't use good judgment on what we had. We had a real good car. Our AAA Ford will still be fine. It's gonna be fast. Jimmy [Fennig] and the guys always prepare good race cars so, fortunately, we've got the second practice and we'll shake this car down and there's still no reason why we won't be a contender on Sunday."

Richard Childress Racing's Kevin Harvick was fourth fastest in the session, with Jamie McMurray rounding out the top-5. This week behind the wheel of the No. 10 Gillett Evernham Motorsports Dodge, A.J. Allmendinger ran the sixth fastest time of the session. Tony Stewart, Martin Truex Jr., Juan Pablo Montoya and Reed Sorenson made up the rest of the top-10.

The Cup cars are currently on the track for their second and final session of the afternoon. Be sure to check back to HardcoreRaceFans.com for all of the latest news and practice results.