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| Groundskeeping: Track workers and pit crews clean up pit road during a 4 1/2 hour rain delay in the Aaron's 312. |
Mark won his 42nd career
NASCAR Busch Series race -- a record, of course. Amazing.
Mark won the Aaron's 312 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
That's the short version. He won, plain and simple. There was
a lot more to it than that, though. He won despite
nearly crashing on the first lap, an almost
six-hour rain delay, racing a NASCAR Busch Series Grand
National Division car under the lights for the first time on
a superspeedway and a car that he felt was faltering in the
late stages. There's no truth to the ugly rumor that NASCAR officials are
considering making him run square wheels in his next NASCAR
Busch Series start. Thing is, Martin would find a way to take
those square wheels to Victory Lane. This was the 42nd
win of Martin's NASCAR Busch Series career -- a record,
of course -- and third in the last four races at
Atlanta. And by the way, the NASCAR Winston Cup Series star
has led at least one lap in every NASCAR Busch Series event
ever held at the facility.
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Amazing, indeed. Martin
took the lead for good on lap 170, and cruised to a
14.147-second victory over runnerup Matt
Kenseth. "Our car really worked good, and then all of a
sudden, it looked like Matt was gonna work us over," Martin
said. "Then, he ran out of gas and got too far behind. My car
really handled good, but something was starting to give up on
it. We were sitting there cruising, and all of a sudden,
Matt just ran us down. I guess I'd rather be lucky than good."
Kevin Lepage, Todd Bodine and Kevin Grubb were third through
fifth, respectively, while David Green, Blaise Alexander,
Dick Trickle, Randy LaJoie and Kenny Irwin rounded out the
top-10. The race was red-flagged for 5 hours, 53 minutes and
56 seconds, and it took Martin another 2 hours, 27 minutes
and 47 seconds to complete the race at an average speed of
126.924 mph. There were six cautions for a total of 37 laps,
and 10 lead changes among five drivers.
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