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MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Gordon told reporters Friday that "your guess is as good as mine" as to whether Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway will be his last.
Gordon is set to conclude his eight-race stint as a fill-in driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has been sidelined with concussion-like symptoms, in Sunday's Goody's Fast Relief 500 (1 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM). The four-time series champion has split time with Alex Bowman as a replacement for Earnhardt in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet.
"I can promise you I had no intentions of this happening, but here I am," Gordon said Friday afternoon after opening Sprint Cup practice. "So never say never. I don't know what to say. I really don't think that I'll be getting back in the Cup car again, but go ask Rick Hendrick. That really has more to do with him than anything else."
The .526-mile track has been a crucial venue for Gordon's stellar stock-car racing career. Gordon has nine Martinsville victories, including a win here last year that propelled him into the Championship 4 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in his final full season.
Though Gordon shied away from calling his career decision "retirement" with a capital "R," the intent was that last year's Homestead event would be his final start in NASCAR's premier series as he transitioned to the FOX Sports broadcast booth.. That changed when he was coaxed out of lower-case-R retirement this summer by team owner Rick Hendrick to help shore up the No. 88 team's driver lineup in Earnhardt's stead.
"I hope in the future that the drivers don't have a situation like what we had with Junior where they need somebody to fill in for them," Gordon said, "but this little bit of experience has been good for me, good for the organization and we've had a little fun with it as well. If I had to do it, then certainly I would be, but I don't anticipate it."
Jimmie Johnson, a longtime teammate with his own sizable measure of Martinsville success, talked about Gordon's impact ahead of Friday morning's opening practice. He was noncommittal about his hunches on whether Gordon would return to competition after this season.
"That is so hard to say. He is one heck of a sub to have sitting on the bench when you need it," Johnson said. "We will see. I'm not sure he is ready to completely stop. I think he was ready to get off the merry-go-round of 39 races a year, but the full stop I don't think he is ready for."
Regardless of what the future may hold for the 45-year-old future Hall of Famer next year and beyond, his 2016 driving duties are scheduled to end Sunday. Bowman, who also drives part-time for Earnhardt's JR Motorsports team in the XFINITY Series, is set to drive the No. 88 in the final three Sprint Cup races of the year.
Gordon indicated that the eight-race interim slate was more than he'd envisioned when Hendrick Motorsports first announced a two-race replacement stretch for him -- at Indianapolis and Pocono -- in mid-July. In his seven fill-in races thus far, Gordon has a best finish of 10th place his last time out at Dover. But besides the results, he's also gained valuable information that has augmented his role as a TV analyst.
"I was kind of happy to do more, sad about the situation, but if they needed me I wanted to do a little bit more to get more comfortable with the team and the cars," Gordon said. "I wanted to drive the cars with less downforce this year and see what it was like. Does me a lot of good when I get back in the FOX booth to kind of connect those dots and was a great experience.
"Each time I've been in the car I feel like I've gotten better and better at giving the feedback that they need. It was nice to get that top 10 at Dover. I'm hoping we get a little bit more here."