In the Daytona 500, Gordon finished 40th after a blown engine on Lap 81, but rebounded with an 8th-place finish the following week at Phoenix. At Martinsville, Gordon led a race-high 328 laps, but Gordon would crash on the 504th lap after Clint Bowyer collided with Gordon and Jimmie Johnson on the restart and Gordon would ultimately finish 14th. At Talladega, Gordon won the pole position, and immediately began experiencing overheating issues with his car and was forced to ride in the mid 20s for a majority of the race, but was eventually caught up in a crash on lap 142 that took out him out along with Carl Edwards, Juan Pablo Montoya, Landon Cassill, Dave Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. In the &lt;a href="2012%20Toyota/Save%20Mart%20350"&gt;2012 Toyota/Save Mart 350&lt;/a&gt;, Gordon would reach a milestone by reaching the 23,000 laps led mark after leading 13 in the race, the most of the current Sprint Cup drivers and ranked 7th all-time. However, Gordon would then run out of fuel and ultimately finish 6th.