Sponsorship of Jeff Gordon’s car was filled Thursday when longtime partner DuPont announced a three-year extension with the four-time NASCAR champion.

DuPont has been with Gordon since his Cup debut in 1992, but the company is scaling back its commitment starting next year. It will be Gordon’s primary sponsor in 14 races.

“I can’t remember what it was like to race without DuPont on board,” said Gordon. “We’ve had such an incredible ride together, and I’ve learned so much about how DuPont applies science and innovation to make a positive difference in the world. It means a lot to me to keep it going for at least another three seasons.

“DuPont has supported me throughout my Cup career, and I feel like we have more wins and championships ahead.”

The announcement comes a day after the AARP Foundation picked up a large portion of DuPont’s previous races. AARP will be the primary sponsor for Gordon in 22 events with its “Drive to End Hunger” campaign.

Pepsi Co., another one of Gordon’s longtime sponsors, is expected to keep its sponsorship of two races. That would fill Gordon’s car with sponsorship for the next several years.

DuPont, meanwhile, will be on Gordon’s car in some fashion in all 38 races next season. The company will celebrate its 20th anniversary with Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports in 2012.

DuPont has the third-longest corporate partnership with Hendrick, trailing only Chevrolet (1984) and MAC Tools (1986).

“I firmly believe Hendrick Motorsports would not be where we are today without DuPont’s commitment to our company and our sport,” said team owner Rick Hendrick.

“They took a leap of faith by sponsoring Jeff and the No. 24 team back in 1992, and the relationship has been unbelievable ever since.”

Elliott Sadler called Friday “the first day of the rest of my life.” If so, it was a pretty good start.

Barely an hour after announcing a deal that will put him in one of Kevin Harvick’s Nationwide Series cars next year, Sadler blew away the field in qualifying for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race in Texas. He zipped around the high-banked 1 1/2-mile track in 195.397 mph, nearly 2 mph better than front-row partner Greg Biffle.

Facing an uncertain future in NASCAR’s top series, Sadler took his first pole since the spring 2006 race at Talladega. His last win was Sept. 5, 2004, in California. The eighth pole of Sadler’s career was less than a mph off the track’s four-year-old qualifying record.

“It’s been a good day to be an Elliott Sadler kind of guy,” said the driver of the No. 19 Ford.

Richard Petty Motorsports is switching Stanley, the primary sponsor on Sadler’s car, to Marcos Ambrose next year, leaving Sadler without a Sprint Cup ride at the moment. If Friday’s qualifying run was an advertisement, it was a good one.

“I don’t know if they’re that fast because they’ve got that mentality, racing for food, or what’s going on,” said Carl Edwards, who completed a Ford sweep of the top three spots by qualifying on the inside of the second row. “But I think it proves how good they can be.”

Maybe Sadler knew good things were in store for the weekend. After qualifying on the front row Thursday night for the Trucks race, Sadler pointed wistfully at a picture in the media center of him edging Kasey Kahne at the finish of the Sprint Cup race in Texas six years ago — one of three career wins. He went to dinner later with his wife, and broke open a fortune cookie that read, “You are about to embark on a most delightful journey.”

“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” Sadler said. “I was excited about a lot of things that were going to happen today.”

He knew about the Harvick deal because it was completed Thursday night. Sadler will drive a Chevrolet for Kevin Harvick Inc. in 29 Nationwide races next season, with Harvick taking the wheel for one race in a multiyear deal with CitiFinancial.

The 35-year-old Sadler made his NASCAR debut in the Nationwide Series 15 years ago and won a Camping World Trucks series race for Harvick at Pocono in July. He also won a pole and finished third for Harvick’s team in a Nationwide race at Bristol in August.

“I saw that picture on the wall and said, ‘You know what. We can do this,’” Sadler said.

Points leader Jimmie Johnson qualified 17th for the race Sunday. He’s locked in a tight battle for the championship with Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick. Harvick is 26th on the starting grid, and Hamlin 30th.

Kevin Harvick is aware of the history the two drivers ahead of him in the Sprint Cup standings have at Martinsville Speedway — and he’s refusing to be intimidated by it.

Harvick is not conceding anything to four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson or Denny Hamlin with five races left in the season. Harvick is third in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship standings, 77 behind Johnson and 36 adrift of Hamlin.

“I think it has a spoiler feel to it,” Harvick said Friday when asked if Sunday’s race has a showdown feel to it. “We’ll spoil the 1-2 showdown this weekend, hopefully.”

He’ll have to overcome some past performances to do it.

Harvick hasn’t won in 18 career starts at 0.526-mile Martinsville, the smallest and trickiest track to navigate in stock car racing’s premier series, while Johnson has won six times and Hamlin three. Johnson and Hamlin have won the last eight races here.

But some help is on the way for Harvick.

Plagued by pit road troubles this season, Harvick and Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer are swapping pit crews for this race, and as long as Harvick is in contention.

For Bowyer, agreeing to the swap was being a team player.

“There is no question that my team is arguably the best team at RCR,” Bowyer said of his over-the-wall gang. “They’ve been together the longest. With us being out of the championship deal, Kevin is the last shot at RCR at basically bringing a championship home.”

The way Harvick sees it, everything is possible in what has been a good season. His three victories are his most since 2006, and he’s been near the top of the standings all year.

“Obviously those guys have got the results to back it up, but we’ve gone from the beginning of the Chase and overachieved on everything that we’ve done,” Harvick said.

“If we hit a home run this weekend, we hit a home run. If we don’t, there is no reason to worry about trying to force anything. I feel like we need to win a race in the next five to make it happen, but when you start forcing things to happen, you wind up with a 35th and then you’ll be done. To be in the game, you have to be close enough to be a part of the game.”

The last four races are at Talladega, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead-Miami.

“I think they’re good tracks for us,” he said, including Martinsville. “We got through Charlotte and Dover without any major disaster, so I’m looking forward to the next five.”

Of course, so is Johnson, who said each title he’s won has made the next easier.

“There are probably some other emotions that are wrapped up into it that all lead to the fact that I am much more relaxed fighting for this championship than any other championship in my life,” Johnson said. “So experience really helps out a lot and I have enjoyed these last five races more than I did the last year and the year before and so on.”

It’s an enjoyment level Harvick is hoping to begin experiencing on Sunday.

Ex-NASCAR driver Shane Hmiel (meal) is showing some positive signs in the hospital as he recovers from a crash over the weekend in Indiana.

The U.S. Auto Club said Tuesday that the 30-year-old Hmiel remains in critical but stable condition at an Indianapolis hospital with fractures in his neck and back.

He doesn’t appear to have any head trauma. Doctors say they are encouraged because he has been able to move both arms.

Hmiel was injured Saturday night during qualifying for the USAC’s Silver Crown race at Terre Haute Action Track.

Hmiel was banned for life from NASCAR in 2006 after failing three drug tests.

What may be the last NASCAR event at Gateway International Raceway may include some fireworks.

Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards return to the track on Saturday with some history.

Edwards bumped then-leader Keselowski out of the way just 200 yards from the finish line to win the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway on July 17. Following the race, Keselowski’s father accused Edwards of trying to “kill his son.”

Keselowski, who ended up 14th in that race, said he would like to gain some revenge by winning on Saturday. He needs only 136 points to clinch the Nationwide Series championship and leads Edwards by 450 points with four races left.

“You try not to worry about the battle,” Keselowski said. “You worry about the war — and that was just one battle in the war.”

All that drama aside, Danica Patrick is preparing for the race with a sense of satisfaction. She sees plenty of progress in her initial NASCAR campaign, including a season-best 21st-place finish last week at Charlotte.

She’s set what she believes is an attainable goal for Saturday’s 5-Hour Energy 250 at Gateway.

“Something in the top 15 would be nice,” she said Friday. “At this point in time, it’s important for me to keep realistic expectations and stick to the top 15.”

Patrick, racing for JR Motorsports, will be making her 10th start of the season on the Nationwide circuit. The 28-year-old bounced back from a rough start with an encouraging 24th-place finish at Chicagoland on July 9. Last week was her best effort to date in terms of both standings and confidence.

“It’s always nice to have the results, but I know that I’ve learned as I’ve gone along,” she said. “And that’s what’s important. I feel more comfortable in the car. I just feel more under control, I feel like it’s coming at me a little slower than it did in the beginning.”

Patrick and her No. 7 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet will be tested during her first appearance at the 1.25-mile oval. She said she is looking forward to the challenge.

Earlier this week, Patrick said she plans on making 13 starts on the Nationwide circuit next season, running a similar schedule to the one she has undergone this campaign.

Slowly, but surely, Patrick is learning the NASCAR ropes.

“The last two races, she’s done really, really well,” said Rusty Wallace, a former Winston Cup Champion. “I think she’s really starting to catch on.”

Gateway has been put up for sale by Dover Motorsports Inc., which did not apply for any racing dates at the 1.25-mile track next season. That means Gateway will lack a major race in 2011 for the first time since 1997.

NOTES: Keselowski and Edwards, who are racing in the Sprint Cup event Sunday at Martinsville, will both likely have to start from the back of the pack. They are not expected to attend the Saturday morning drivers’ meeting at Gateway. … Edwards and Reed Sorenson have combined to win five of the last six races here.

Hours after he was too ill to get back in his wounded race car, Kasey Kahne ran a Sunday morning 5k for his charity in a shade over 22 minutes.

“That was the slowest I ever ran a 5K,” he said. “I’m definitely feeling the effects.”

Yes, Kahne was physically sick Saturday night, and said he vomited once after his accident 124 laps into the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

He was also sick of his race car, frustrated with running poorly and disgusted that his brakes had failed for the third time this season, and second time in three races. Had he not gotten sick, Kahne said Sunday he might have gotten back in the car after his Richard Petty Motorsports crew repaired some of the damage.

By that time, though, he was 100 laps down.

JR Motorsports locked in Danica Patrick for the first four Nationwide Series races of 2011, and the rest of her schedule will depend on her IndyCar commitments.

Team co-owner Kelley Earnhardt said Friday that Patrick will run at Daytona, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Bristol next season. It will be her first trip to Bristol’s .533-mile bullring.

“That will be kind of neat for her to get to experience what NASCAR is all about and that’s basically going around Bristol,” said crew chief Tony Eury Jr.

Patrick will take a break from NASCAR after Bristol to concentrate on the IndyCar schedule through the Indianapolis 500 in May. She’ll then resume Nationwide racing that will be coordinated with her IndyCar commitments.

Earnhardt said Patrick can run up to 14 races in the No. 7 Chevrolet, but the car will run the full season. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is expected to run four races in the car.

“I know we’re all anxious to get the whole schedule put in place, but I’m extremely excited to be able to confirm our participation in the first four races,” Patrick said. “We’ll have four extremely challenging and unique races to start our 2011 season, and I’m anxious to return to a lot of those tracks with at least a little bit of familiarity.”

Patrick said she knows at some point next season she’ll have to make a decision about her commitment to NASCAR. The race Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway was the ninth of 13 scheduled Nationwide races this season.

She ended the IndyCar season two weeks ago, finishing 10th in the final standings.

“We haven’t made all of those decisions, 2012 is a little up in the air and it depends on the opportunities, where I could run, what Kelley is doing, what’s happening at JR Motorsports, what’s happening on the sponsorship side,” Patrick said. “If something doesn’t come together, I’d run IndyCar. There’s a lot of things up in the air right now. We’ll see where my heart goes and where the opportunities are.”

Rick Hendrick never panicked as the season stretched on and he still didn’t have a sponsorship deal for Jeff Gordon.

Why? Because he always had a contingency plan to fall back on. It gave him the ability to be discerning when it came to the four-time NASCAR champion.

Then came the potential pairing with the AARP Foundation, which began talks on a sponsorship program with Hendrick Motorsports in September. The deal quickly fell into place, and the foundation’s “Drive to End Hunger” campaign was announced Wednesday as Gordon’s primary sponsor for the next three years.

“We had a deal in our pocket. It was a verbal agreement,” Hendrick said of the second suitor, which he refused to identify. “But this one came only faster, quicker and had more potential.”

More potential for both sides.

The cause-related sponsorship is the first of its kind to step in as primary sponsor for a major race team. It’s a good fit for Hendrick, who has devoted a considerable amount of time and money to charitable causes.

The American Association of Retired Persons plans to use its sponsorship to raise both money and awareness of hunger in America. Statistics given by AARP on Wednesday said an estimated 51 million Americans who go hungry each night, and six million are over the age of 60.

Jo Ann Jenkins, president of the AARP Foundation, said the numbers are startling to most Americans, and a the partnership with Gordon should lead to increased donations. But earning charitable donations from NASCAR fans — according to demographics released by NASCAR in 2007, 53 percent of its fan base have an average income of below $50,000 — could be difficult as they still try to recover from the recession.

Jenkins said the typical donation to the AARP Foundation is small, in the $10-to-$20 range, and the investment on Gordon’s car will pay for itself.

Jenkins would not disclose how much the AARP Foundation is paying, but the sponsorship is for 22 races next year beginning with the Daytona 500. The industry going rate is estimated to be $15 million for a full 36-race schedule, and Budweiser is believed to have paid $10 million for 22 races with Richard Childress Racing beginning next season.

“I don’t think we have any doubt in our mind that the initial investment the AARP has put into this, the money raised from this is going to far exceed that investment,” Jenkins said. “This not only is about raising the money and using the initial investment from AARP, but how do we solve this in a country rich as ours so that no one in this country is going hungry.”

Wednesday’s announcement ends a season-long sponsorship search for Hendrick Motorsports. The team needed to replace a portion of races that Gordon’s longtime sponsor, DuPont, will no longer fund.

Hendrick said the car is full for 2011, but would not reveal what level DuPont and Pepsi will have in filling out the remaining 16 races — two of which are non-points events — on the schedule. He said an announcement on the remainder of the schedule is coming.

“With Jeff’s following and the respect that everyone in the sport has for him, and the way we can maybe move the needle, I take this as a personal challenge,” Hendrick said. “If we can do something … to feed the hungry, then I think it will be more of a blessing and a feel good and a positive at the end of the day than all those (championship) banners hanging in the back (of the race shop).”

Jeff Gordon said earlier in the week he figured his chances of getting back into contention for a fifth series championship were pretty much gone.

On Sunday, Kurt Busch helped make sure there was no doubt, bumping Gordon coming out of the fourth turn and sending him slamming into the front-stretch wall and out of contention.

Turns out, Busch holds a grudge. For a long time.

“He shoved me in there and I shoved him back in Turn 4,” Busch said before detailing a history of discontent with Gordon at Martinsville. “I didn’t mean to get into him that hard, but over the years with Gordon here, back in the 97 (car), wrecking the 2 car, whether you’re a current Kurt fan or ex-Rusty (Wallace) fan, he’s wrecked the 2 car a lot here.”

Wallace, now a television announcer, drove the No. 2 car before Busch.

“His chicken move afterward wasn’t called for, but that shows the game we’re gonna play,” Busch said. “One bump versus another bump, it still seems like the scorecard isn’t even.”

Gordon said he was to blame, at least for part of the initial contact.

“We ran him down quite a bit, we were quite a bit faster than him,” Gordon said of the first issue. “I dove inside of him in Turn 3 and I definitely over-shot it a little bit. Either he didn’t know I was there or whatever and cut down on me and I got into him.”

Gordon had been running near the front all race, but finished 20th.

“Kurt Busch doesn’t have a very long fuse, so either it was pay-back or he just got angry really quick and decided to wreck us,” Gordon said of Busch’s costly nudge.

The two got together one more time later, and Gordon said he wasn’t sure why.

“I guess I didn’t know he was on the outside of me,” he said.

___

MEMORABLE: Mark Martin has had a forgettable season one year after his bid for a long-coveted Sprint Cup championship came up short, but made for a gripping, feel-good story.

He missed the Chase for the championship this year, was 15th in points and winless.

Sunday made up for a lot of it as he recovered from going two laps down early in the race and drove a battered race car to a second-place finish, his best of the season.

“Gosh, that was so much fun, and it was such a bad day,” he said after rallying from a miserable start to pass Kevin Harvick in the closing laps. “I was running out of brakes at lap 30 and I thought, `This is going to be the longest day of my life.’”

Instead, it proved to be not long enough because he couldn’t chase down Denny Hamlin.

“Another 20 laps and we could have caught him,” he said. “I never really have enjoyed this place, to be honest. But that last hundred laps was fun.”

___

TEAMMATE TROUBLE: Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton of Richard Childress Racing had a spat when they were racing close near the lead during a restart with about 150 laps to go.

Burton slid in line in front of Harvick, and Harvick nudged him to show his displeasure.

“He is out of mulligans. He’s done it to me three times now,” Harvick said on his radio.

Burton was adamant he did nothing wrong.

“I have no clue what he could be possibly upset about,” he said after the race.

Burton also offered some advice to his teammate.

“There will come a point when he realizes that everybody in the world is not against him. And every time it’s a conflict, he is involved,” he said. “And you would think over the amount of years that he has done it, that he would get the hint that he is always in the middle of it and maybe sometimes if he just backed up a little bit and caught his breath, he would be okay. I’m not out to harm him. I am a teammate of his and I am trying to help him.”

Perhaps, Burton said, Harvick is wound up by contending for the championship, but regardless, he needs to figure out a better way to voice his displeasure, he said.

“If what I did was wrong,” he said, “then I will just quit racing.”

A Brazilian prosecutor warned Felipe Massa that he could be arrested and sentenced to up to six years in prison if he takes team orders to help Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso win the Formula One title.

Massa could be charged with fraud if he allows Alonso to pass him or if he does anything else that would somehow alter the result Sunday at in Interlagos, according to prosecutor Paulo Castilho, known for taking up sports causes in Brazil.

“Massa or any other driver who does anything to fraud the result of the race can be arrested and formally charged,” Castilho told The Associated Press on Thursday. “It doesn’t mean that it will happen, it will be up to the local authority in charge of the event to decide whether the law has been broken.”

The law mentioned by Castilho says that it’s a crime to “fraud by any means, or contribute to fraud, in any way, the result of a sporting event.”

Massa arrived at the Brazilian Grand Prix saying he would give way to his teammate if needed Sunday, just as he did while leading the German GP in July so Alonso could earn more points in the race for the title.

“I would do it again, I’m a professional driver,” Massa said earlier this week.

The move in Germany prompted F1 officials to fine Ferrari $100,000 for using team orders, but none of the drivers’ were punished. Massa was heavily criticized by some fans and local media.

“Even after the race in Germany, when I arrived in Brazil, the people were very nice with me, very fantastic, pushing me forward,” he said.

Massa had already helped another Ferrari teammate win the title in 2007. He was leading the race at Interlagos, but allowed Kimi Raikkonen to take over the lead and secure the championship.

Alonso can win the title if he wins Sunday and Red Bull’s Mark Webber finishes fifth or worse. Alonso can also clinch the title by finishing second if Webber is eighth or worse, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton fourth or worse and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel third or worse.

“If there is enough evidence showing that the team orders are affecting the result unfairly, the local authority can make the arrests of those involved,” Castilho said.

Alonso has 231 points with two races to go, 11 points more than Webber and 21 points ahead of Hamilton. Massa is not in contention for the title.

Alonso said he is hoping that Massa runs well enough to win the final two races of the season, keeping his rivals from getting the victories.

“It’s best to have Felipe winning the races because then he is taking 25 points away from everybody else,” the Spaniard said.

Massa and Ferrari officials could not be reached to comment on the prosecutor’s warning.

The prosecutor’s warning against team orders was first reported by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, Brazil’s largest.