RELATED: Practice results

Propelling his No. 22 Team Penske Ford at 98.826 mph around Martinsville Speedway, Joey Logano earned the top spot on the leaderboard during Friday’s opening practice. Logano, who is riding a three-race win streak, ran qualifying trim to earn the top spot.

Jeff Gordon was second on the charts, posting the second-fastest speed with a fast lap of 98.364 mph. Gordon’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has earned eight wins at the paperclip oval, tying teammate Jimmie Johnson for the all-time track winner in the modern era.

Team Penske‘s Brad Keselowski (98.338 mph), Stewart-Haas Racing‘s Kevin Harvick (98.328 mph) and Germain Racing‘s Casey Mears (98.195 mph) rounded out the top five. Mears was the only non-Chase contender in the top five.

Kurt Busch was the slowest of the eight Chase drivers, ranking 22nd on the speed charts with a fast lap of 97.754 mph in his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.

Reigning race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. wheeled his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports ride at 97.598 mph to snag the 24th position.
 
Denny Hamlin, who earned his Chase-clinching victory at the Virgina short track in March, was 12th-fastest on the charts with a top speed of 98.053 mph.

The Sprint Cup Series is back on track at Martinsville at 4:20 p.m. ET for Coors Light Pole qualifying (NBCSN/Live Extra).

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — One of NASCAR’s tightest race tracks just got safer, but also that much tighter. Whether it affects the seventh race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs is an answer that will have to wait until Sunday.

Thanks to Martinsville Speedway‘s midseason safety renovations, energy-absorbing SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barrier now encircles the entire outside retaining wall at the .526-mile track. It follows a recent trend of additions at International Speedway Corp.-owned tracks, including Talladega and Phoenix.

The only areas where SAFER does not cover the concrete are on the inside wall in the turns, beyond the curbing and the slivers of infield grass. But the exterior SAFER protection — which juts out roughly 30 inches from the original wall — has made an already snug paper-clip circuit even cozier.

“First of all, we appreciate the SAFER barriers, that’s good. The fans should appreciate it because it’s going to make it more narrow than it was,” said Carl Edwards, one of eight drivers still alive in the Chase’s Eliminator Round. “It seems driving down the straightaway trying to pass cars even in practice, it just seems really tight. As narrow and tough as this place was, it’s just going to be narrower and tougher.”

Sprint Cup and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams didn’t spend much time double-file during Friday’s practice and qualifying, so the full extent of the makeover may not yet be known until Sunday’s Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 (1:15 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM).

“I don’t think you can tell a difference on the exit of the corner, but once you get down the straightaways, you can see people scrape the wall halfway down the straightaways just trying to get their entry opened up,” Kyle Larson said. “It’s not too terribly different. I mean, this track’s tight anyway.”

Timothy Peters , last week’s Truck Series winner at Talladega, tried out the track’s new configuration two weeks ago during Martinsville’s annual 300-lap Late Model race, finishing fourth as he crashed across the finish line in a last-lap bid for the lead. Peters made contact with the SAFER-protected inside wall, but didn’t notice a significant difference in racing with a tighter groove.

“The Late Model and the trucks are a little bit different — less horsepower and stuff — you don’t use much of the race track,” Peters said. “When I get in my truck this afternoon, I’ll be able to tell a little bit more with our Tundra. As far as the Late Model, I didn’t even notice it. I tested it out, but I didn’t notice it.”