Sorenson looks to pick up the torch lit by Kahne

LOUDON, N.H. -- After spending what he described as a whirlwind, hectic week in the wake of Richard Petty Motorsports' lead driver Kasey Kahne's victory last weekend at Infineon Raceway, the team's namesake saw more of the same Saturday morning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Reed Sorenson, who wheels the No. 43 that Richard Petty made famous in NASCAR, was quickest in the opening 45-minute practice for Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 with a lap of the 1.058-mile oval in 29.647 seconds, an average speed of 128.472 mph.

Petty, who came to the infield media center to preview next weekend's 25th anniversary celebration of his 200th career victory at Daytona International Speedway, alluded to the fact that Sorenson was compelled to make up for the fact that he was the only RPM driver who last weekend failed to finish in the top 10 at Infineon, but he also said not to make too much of it.

"This was practice, and they didn't pay nothing for practice, so different people look at practice different," Petty said. "Some of them want to run fast and some of them want to go out and run a bunch of laps and just be steady and try to see where the car settles down.

"We know he had the fastest one lap, but did he have the fastest 15 or 20 laps? That's what we've got to go back and look at. A lot of times you've got the fastest car out there, but you can't put in two or three fast laps [in a row]; so just because you run a fast lap doesn't mean you'll be that good in the race, but it does make the crew and the driver feel good."

In final practice, Kevin Harvick had the fastest average lap in practice, 126.350 mph, in 43 laps, ahead of teammate Clint Bowyer, who averaged 126.316 mph for 53 laps. Bowyer was 15th on the time sheet. Sorenson had the 14th fastest average lap, 125.881 mph, for his 37 laps. (Continued)