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One Small Step For NASCAR, One Giant Leap For Mark Martin

An Opinion



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September 21, 2009

By Ron Felix


Ron Felix
Mark Martin took a giant leap toward winning his first Sprint Cup championship by taking the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday.

It was Martin's fifth victory in 2009 and the 40th win of his 749 race career. It was Martin's first victory at the New Hampshire track.

“Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) won that race -- that’s all I got to say," Martin said. "He took a driver that can’t drive Loudon and put a set-up in it that we could run along reasonable. Just like I said before the race, if they can stumble around and get me in the front then I might be able to stay there with it. That’s what we did, but it was sure tough.”


CIA Stock Photos
Martin Celebrates Five Victories
Denny Hamlin took the second spot while pole sitter Juan Pablo Montoya posted a third-place finish in today’s race, his third top-five and 13th top-10. This is his eighth top-five and 22nd top-10 in 100 career starts. He claimed his fifth career top-five on a superspeedway.

Montoya led four times for 105 laps to earn WIX Filters Lap Leader of the Race honors. Montoya captured the honor for the second time this season. Montoya has now led 274 laps in 66 superspeedway starts and 309 laps in 100 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. He has led 269 laps in 27 starts this season.

"I passed a ton of cars every restart, like three or four cars every restart, and I got to Mark (Martin, race winner)," said Montoya. "I thought I had him. I was running beside him, I was like, I think I'm losing power but I think I can get enough just to the line. He cleared me coming out of (Turn) 4, and then when he went to 1 and 2 he just stopped on the bottom. I didn't expect that. I was expecting him to run pretty hard. He just ran very defensively, and I just got caught by surprise. I think if I would have would have been prepared I probably would have jumped to the outside.

"He always runs very clean, so I was kind of surprised when he did that," Montoya explained. "I know it's the Chase and everything, but you just learn from it. I would have done the same thing. I think you've got to do it to somebody that you trust is not going to knock you out, because I think if I would have done -- if the second place guy wasn't me, I think somebody else would have been a little bit more aggressive. But you learn from it. It's one of those deals that you've got to do what it takes, and he did."

Jimmie Johnson brought his Chevrolet home in the fourth spot and Kyle Busch finished fifth followed by his older brother, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer to round out the top ten.

Kasey Kahne brought out the first caution on lap 66 and retired from the race with a blown engine.

"I don’t know why. I felt it start to run a little bit rough down the backstretch and it broke on the frontstretch. I thought that it was coming, the gauges all looked good, but I knew that it was coming,"Kahne said. "We had a good car. I think we were up to eighth or ninth. It seemed like our Budweiser Dodge was decent. We had some things to do to make it better. -- It’s disappointing. It’s better than last week because we wouldn’t have been in the Chase. We just have to work extra hard now. I don’t know how this all works. You never know in the Chase if you can have a mulligan or not. This team is doing a nice job. We’ll be 12th when we leave here. Hopefully, we can make gains in those final nine (races).”

Jeff Gordon was running in the top ten until the end of the race but wound up a disappointing 15th.

"I was really happy with it (the car). I was concerned about our restarts. The last time we fought that as well, being really loose on the restarts. If you're on the front row, you can get away with it a little bit but being fifth or sixth we just really struggled with the grip on the restarts. We'd lose three or four spots every restart and then we'd start not being able to gain it back. It just wasn't a good day for us. It's one we've just got to put behind us and go on."

Joey Logano scored a 21st-place finish on the lead lap and captured Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 20th time in 27 races this season.

“This place is just hard to get a hold of. This place is really difficult," said Logano. "I know it’s my home track and all but I don’t like it. It is what it is. These cars are just a handful here. You can’t run the same line you would in a Camping World car or Nationwide car ‘cause they’ve got so much motor and you’re trying to compromise something to get the drive and it’s the guys that aren’t compromising anything that are fast. You’re trying to get all you can on restarts and then you pretty much equal out with everybody. Maybe it was one guy fast but everyone is about the same speed and it’s just trying to nitpick it and trying to get the best one you can. It’s tough. It’s a tough deal.

On lap 176, Logano bumped Elliott Sadler sending him around collecting Paul Menard, Michael Waltrip, Robby Gordon and John Andretti.

“I kept slowing down and cars just kept passing me sideways," Logano continued. "I mean, that was my fault. I started it actually. I kind of got pinned in the middle there and just trying to get out of it, didn’t want to get in the back of the 19 and just got there. It stinks. I’ve got to call and apologize to him. It tore up some cars there and I didn’t mean to do that. Overall I guess you’d call it okay. I wouldn’t call it good, I wouldn’t call it great by no means but okay. Twenty-first is about where we ran all day.”

Tony Stewart, No. 14 Office Depot, finished 14th after a mechanical issue sent him down pit road for a lengthy stop for repairs after leading four times for a total of 52 laps. Stewart dropped from second in the standings to sixth place.

You wouldn't think Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s season could get much worse, but late in the race (lap 283) he and David Reutimann got together. The contact sent Earnhardt into the outside wall, destroying his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, he finished 35th.

"My car is tore up and he ain't got enough talent to run in the top-five I guess," said a ticked-off Earnhardt. "He run down into the side of me and spun me out late in the race. I mean we're all running real hard but you've got to know how much race car you've got and you've got to know how much talent you've got before you go down in the corner. He never knows. It's disappointing. We had a good car. We run hard and worked hard all day long and we had the best car at certain times in the race. I felt like we had a top-three car. The AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet ain't got no finish. I hate it for my guys that worked real hard. We worked hard all day trying to get a good finish out of it."

The Sprint Cup Series moves to Dover International Speedway next Sunday for the second race in the "Chase for the Championship." Greg Biffle was the winner of this race last year. The race is scheduled for 1:00 PM /Eastern time and will be broadcast on ABC television.

The race will also be broadcast live on MRN Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128.


For Full Final Race Results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Sprint Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)



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The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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