Pontiac Excitement

Mark started Saturday night’s race in 11th place. The MaxLife/Cummins Taurus was a bit loose early in the race, so Mark Martin

the crew added wedge and made an air pressure adjustment on lap 44. The 16.05-second pit stop sent Mark out of the pits in eighth place. By the halfway point of the race, the car’s handling was pretty good and Mark ran consistently in the top-five. He led three laps as the race leader Rusty Wallace helped Mark earn his five bonus points for leading a lap.

The first setback of the evening came during a pit stop on lap 240. Mark came into the pits in fifth place for a routine stop under caution. Two of the lugnuts stuck on the right-rear wheel, which gave the team a 22.96-second stop. When the race resumed, Mark was back in 11th place. Since the car was so good, he was able to work his way back up to the leaders. The caution came out again on lap 264 when Bobby Labonte spun. Half of the field pitted, but Mark and many others opted to stay out since it had only been 25 laps since their last stop. Another yellow for Chad Little on lap 275 brought the remainder of the field into the pits. Since several teams stayed out, Mark resumed the race in 16th place. He continued to work his way back into the top-10 until the final setback of the evening struck. Mark blew a right-front tire with 38 laps to go, which sent him directly into the wall. The car was too damaged to repair, but luckily Mark was not hurt. His first DNF of the season gave him a 32nd place finish. "I’m pretty disappointed," Mark said. "It’s been a tough weekend on me and we were so close to getting a pretty good finish. The right-front blew with no warning and I hit the wall pretty hard. My back is a little sore, but I’m okay. I’m disappointed for the guys because they worked so hard all weekend and they deserved a top-10 finish. I guess we were lucky some of the other point leaders had problems also, so it didn’t hurt us as bad as it could have."


Bad luck plagued Mark all night long with a blown right front tire ending his night in 32nd place.