Martin Takes MBNA Gold 400
After winning a career-best seven times in 1998, nobody figured Mark Martin would still be looking for his second victory this season in September.
"I desperately wanted to win this race," Martin said Sunday after taking the MBNA Gold 400 for the third straight year. The victory ended a 25-race drought, since the second event of the season in Rockingham, N.C.
"We needed this one," Martin said. "This team's been behind me 100 percent, and I didn't see any change of attitude. This was sweet."
This was a vintage performance by the 40-year-old from Batesville, Ark.
"I love this race track," he said of Dover Downs International Speedway. "I've loved it since I first came here in 1983 as a 23-year-old driver. It's just easy to make my car handle."
He can't say exactly why, and places no significance on winning only in the fall and only the last three years after trying for so long. He says there are other tracks where he works harder, tests more often and still has little success.
"We go to Martinsville and I can't get my car to handle and I don't know how to get it to handle," he said. "It's a nightmare for me even though we've won there."
Confidence has a great deal to do with winning at any track. Martin has complete respect for Dover, but feels positive each time he races here. At Dover, winning and contending seem to come naturally.
"Charlotte's not a challenge, Dover's not a challenge and Bristol's not a challenge," he said.
That alone demonstrates how much ability Martin has. Dover, Bristol Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway are generally considered the three most difficult tracks on the NASCAR circuit.
On Sunday, Martin hung on gamely as rookie Tony Stewart devastated the field for most of the first half of the race. Then, he waged a magnificent battle with Winston Cup points leader Dale Jarrett.
Martin fell back steadily after Jarrett took the lead on the 255th of 400 laps around the Monster Mile, but maintained his pace until Jarrett began to slow down.
"We needed to run smart today," Martin said. "I knew we had plenty of time, and I didn't want to pressure the tires."
Martin caught Jarrett on the backstretch on lap 313, passed him easily and rode off to lead by 5 1/2 seconds.
Once he went in front on the 23rd lead change of the race Martin was behind for only two laps during exchanges of green-flag stops. He assumed the lead for good on lap 349.
Then came a final test. Ricky Craven hit the wall on the 354th lap, bunching the field and putting a rejuvenated Stewart back on the lead lap.
But Martin was equal to the task. He drove away from Jarrett when the green flag waved on lap 359.
"Once we restarted, there was no more saving tires," Martin said. "We had to go for it."
Then came the job of holding off Stewart, who got by Jarrett with 30 laps to go. Stewart, after getting a bad set of tires on lap 155, had fallen three laps behind.
"I was angry," Stewart said. "Today the tires were terrible."
"It was one of those good bad days, where we were able to run our pace and then the thing wanted to keep crashing. We didn't know what changes to make because we were so inconsistent."
But Stewart's patience paid off, and at the end his Pontiac was the only car within striking distance of Martin's Ford. Still, that wasn't close enough, and Martin won by 1.1 seconds.
It was the 31st career victory for Martin, but he didn't make much progress in his bid to catch third-place finisher Jarrett in the points race. Jarrett leads Martin by 257 points.
"I really didn't care about the points today," Martin said. "I just wanted to win."
Bobby Labonte, who finished fifth in his Pontiac, fell to third, 264 points back.
Jarrett, who felt much better than he had 24 hours earlier when back pain prevented him from tying his shoes, was happy with his finish.
"We were no match for Mark," he said. "He could go wherever he wanted. All in all it was a good day."
But Martin was not to be denied.
"We had a great setup today," he said. "We just didn't need to have something go wrong."
Busch Grand National ace Matt Kenseth, who next year will drive a car co-owned by Martin, and his boss, Jack Roush, was fourth in a Ford.
Jeff Burton, Martin's teammate, finished sixth, the last car on the lead lap. Chad Little was seventh, a lap down, giving Roush Racing four cars in the top seven.
Martin collected $115,710 from the $2.2 million purse.
He averaged 127.434 mph in a race slowed by caution times for 22 laps. There were 25 lead changes among 10 drivers. Martin led seven times for 161 laps.
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