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Gordon within reach of record at Brickyard

When Jeff Gordon starts the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at The Brickyard on Sunday, he will become the only driver to have competed in all 22 editions of the Brickyard 400.

This is Gordon’s final race in Indianapolis as a full-time driver (although he has left the door open to run selected future races), and he’ll be going for a sixth Brickyard win.

A sixth victory would make him the only driver to win six major races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. No driver has won the Indianapolis 500 more than four times, and only Michael Schumacher has won the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Indianapolis five times.

Gordon’s most recent win at Indianapolis came last year. On July 27, 2014, he became the first driver to win five NSCS Indianapolis races and tied Schumacher’s record for wins at the track.

Other milestone wins for Gordon at Indianapolis:

•Aug. 6, 1994: Won inaugural Brickyard 400

•Aug. 1, 1998: Became first driver to win the Brickyard 400 more than once

•Aug. 8, 2004: Tied A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser for most wins at the track in a major series with four

Like Gordon, Bobby Labonte ran the first 21 races in NASCAR’s highest circuit at Indianapolis, but Labonte isn’t in this year’s field.

Gordon is also the Indianapolis NCSC leader in the following categories:

•Top-five finishes: 12 (next best: seven)

•Top-10 finishes: 17 (11)

•Poles won: three (two)

•Laps led: 528 (302)

Jimmie Johnson has won this race four times in the last nine years, and despite not leading a lap in last year’s race, he has led more than twice as many laps (172) as any other driver over the past three years at Indianapolis (Gordon is third with 52 laps led).