|
| Mark Martin, victor of the Albertsons 300 Presented By Pop Secret, pops out of his winning Ford Taurus. |
It took him all day and part of the
evening, but Mark eventually took control of the
Albertson's 300 at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday.
Rain halted the race after only 19 laps, and following a wait
of nearly five hours for the restart, Mark worked his way
up to the leaders but wasn't out front until he blew past
Matt Kenseth on the backstretch on Lap 165.Mark was in command from that point and went on to notch his fourth win in five Grand National series starts this season. The race ended just before 7:30 p.m., more than seven hours after the green flag first flew. "That's just a great effort by this whole team," Mark said in Victory Lane. "We had to be smart. We had the right set-up on the car at the end. It all worked out. We just had to be patient." Mark most likely would have won the other race he entered at Las Vegas, but Jack Sprague spun in front of him in the final laps and Mark had to dodge him. That allowed Jeff Burton to pass Mark for the win there, with Mark finishing second. There was one late-race incident that complicated matters for Mark. Phil Parsons spun in Turn 4 on Lap 181 to bring out a yellow flag, bunching up Kenseth, David Green and Todd Bodine on Mark's bumper. As has been the story all season, however, none of those drivers had enough to beat Mark, who increased his Grand National career victory record to 44 and won for the third time in four races held at the 1.5-mile Texas track. Mark also won one of the three Winston Cup races held here, getting a victory in 1998. He'll start 10th in Sunday's DirecTV 500 in an effort to score a weekend sweep. That left Green, who had started at the rear of the field in a backup car after a crash in practice, to take third place and get the highest finish among those drivers running the full Grand National schedule this season. Todd Bodine wound up fourth with Jeff Green fifth. No Grand National series regular has won in the season's first seven races. That should change next weekend when they race at Nashville while the Winston Cup circuit is at Martinsville. There was a scary moment just past the midway point in the race when Adam Petty and Mike Dillon slid their cars almost simultaneously coming off Turn 2. The rear of Dillon's car slammed the outside wall, and as the car came back across the track it was hit in the rear by Mike McLaughlin's car. That impact caused Dillon's car to erupt in a ball of flames on the backstretch. Petty scrambled from his car and ran to see if he could help Dillon out of the flaming wreck. Dillon said the impact had left him a little foggy. "The fire woke me back up pretty quick," he said. Dillon bumped his head and banged his knee but was otherwise fine. |
|
|