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.

What made Sorenson feel the best was that his Dodge Charger repeated his quality time in final practice, when Sorenson was fourth-best behind practice leader Martin Truex Jr.'s No. 1 Chevrolet, who clocked a 29.713-second, 128.186 mph lap.

"I still think that we're a little off to catch the leaders [but] we've got a nice top-10 car right now," Sorenson said. "I usually run good at this track and hang around the top 10 most of the day. I really enjoy this track and our car had a little bit more work done on it for this race [so] it's definitely a better car."

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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. 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.

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-- RICHARD PETTY

Sorenson was sixth in this event a year ago, his only top-10 in six career Cup starts. In Saturday's practices he was by far the best RPM driver. Kasey Kahne, who was 12th in the first practice and 14th in final practice, was the only other RPM driver who was better than 26th in either Saturday practice.

"I don't know [what practice means]," Petty said. "Our big deal now is trying to finish up here, from what they started last week. We had three cars in the top 10 -- that's the first time that's happened since Daytona [500, season-opener]; so maybe we've got a little momentum going. Things are getting better.

"I think that by doing what they did, as a team, with three cars in the top 10 -- but Reed had problems and we don't know what he would have done if he'd have finished the [Infineon] race, and I think he felt he would try to come back this week and prove [what he could do] because he did get left out last week."

Petty and Sorenson agreed that qualifying getting rained-out at New Hampshire, which set the field per the rulebook and mired the RPM cars in 13th (Kahne), 23rd (Elliott Sadler) 27th (Sorenson) and 30th (A.J. Allmendinger) would require one particular element Sunday -- patience.

"We feel like we have a good enough car to get a top-10 finish and run with the leaders if we can get up there -- we don't need to do anything stupid to force our way to the front [because] our car is fast," Sorenson said. "We just need to be patient the first 100 laps or so, make some good calls in the pits and hope to be there in end.

"Not getting to qualify hurt us just because we have to start 27th, so we'll have to use the first 50 laps to get up in the field and chase down as many cars as we can. I think if we could have started inside the top 10 or 15, it would have made for an easier day and we would have had a better pit stall; but, the rain killed us."

"The main deal here, whether you're starting up front or in the middle or in the back, is patience," Petty said. "This is a very, very tight race track and just one little mistake can wipe out three or four cars so I guess if I'm going to tell 'em anything, it's 'do as good as you can.' But the main deal is to be patient and to be there when it's over with."

Petty could probably stand a repeat of what he experienced last week after visiting Victory Lane for the first time in more than 10 years.

"Yeah, no matter where we went, if we went out to eat or down the road to the service station or at the race track, I guess I didn't realize that it was spread that much," Petty said of the congratulations he received. "Monday, I think we finally just took the phone of the hook. Everybody was just calling and saying 'congratulations' as if I'd done something [laughing], you know what I mean?

"The crew has been working at it, they've been close [and last] Sunday they just put it all together for a couple, three of our teams -- so it wasn't anything that I did different last week than what I'd been doing. I'm just keeping the bills paid. That's my part of it."