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| Quick pit stops kept Tony Stewart at the front of the field all night. Here, he follows teammate Bobby Labonte(18) out of the pits during a furious pit road scramble with Mike Skinner(31), Jeff Burton(99) and Rusty Wallace. A blown engine late in the race cost Mark from gaining points on Dale Jarrett. |
Thirty-four laps before the end of the Exide Batteries 400, Mark
Martin's shot at a top-10 finish went up in a puff of smoke. The engine
failure in Martin's Ford Taurus resulted in a 35th-place finish. "We broke
something in the engine," Mark said. "I'm not sure if it was a piston or
a valve or something that took us out. Toward the end, we started to have
a little bit of trouble with the track sealer wearing off, but the
Valvoline/Cummins team did a great job and we were pretty darn strong for
two-thirds of the race."
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Watching Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
race side by side in the closing laps of the Autolite Platinum 250 at
Richmond made for a great show. "That was a really great race there at the
end," Martin said. "Dale Jr. had a strong car. Our car was better on long
runs and with all of those yellows, we just didn't have much of a chance
at a long run. The guys did a great job in the pits and they gave me
another fantastic car."
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