NEXT MILESTONE: At Dover (Del.) International Speedway on Sept. 27, Martin will make his 750th career Sprint Cup start. Martin will become only the ninth driver to reach this mark in the series 61-year history. In his 748 Cup starts, he has earned 39 victories, 252 top-five finishes and 410 top-10s. He has driven 274,481.9 miles during his 27-year career. That’s enough distance to take him more than 35,000 miles past the moon.
QUOTES
MARK MARTIN, DRIVER, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET (ON BEING THE POINTS LEADER.): “It’s exciting for sure. The enjoyment I get out of seeing the guys on this team get excited—that’s why I love what I’m doing. And they really, really wanted to make the Chase. But once it was thrown out there that we could be the points leader, I knew they wanted that, too. It’s an accomplishment for sure, and I think it says a lot about this race team. We were 34th in points. And those four wins, at the time, were a huge help just to get us into the Chase. And now they mean so much more. So, while it’s not a huge lead, and I don’t think any of us are getting a big head over it, it’s definitely a nice accomplishment.”
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MARTIN (ON THIS WEEKEND’S RACE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.): “We struggled a bit at New Hampshire when we were there earlier this year. The rain-shortened race didn’t help us much either. But I think the team has learned where the cars can be improved. Look, every track that we’ve come back to a second time this year, Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and these guys have brought me a better race car than we had the time before. And I have no doubt that that’s going to continue. I’m looking forward to getting there. I’m looking forward to getting back out on the track.”
MARTIN (ON FAVORED DRIVERS OR TEAMS IN THE CHASE.): “I don’t really think you can pick that out. I mean, the Chase is anyone’s to win and anyone’s to lose. All of these teams got in here because they’re good. And all it takes is a stretch of 10 good races to win this. I think any of these 12 teams could win it.”
ALAN GUSTAFSON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 5 CARQUEST/KELLOGG’S CHEVROLET (ON THE NO. 5 TEAM ENTERING THE CHASE AS THE POINTS LEADER.): “The biggest thing for me is that we have a little bit of a head start—not much, but it is a small head start and a little advantage over the competition. So that’s a positive. It’s definitely better than being behind. We put ourselves in the best position we could, and it’s better than anyone else. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not extremely high. Ten points is a small amount now that could be a huge amount later. But for right now we’ll look at it as not much of an advantage. We’ll consider it even and go out and do the best we can.”
GUSTAFSON (ON THE TEAM’S APPROACH THROUGHOUT THE CHASE.): “We want to win every race. If we can’t win, or don’t feel that we are in a position to win, then we’ll race as hard as we can for every spot. Nothing changes as far as our philosophy and preparation. We’re going (to the racetrack) to win. We’ll try to win Loudon, and then Dover, and Kansas, and so on and so forth.”
GUSTAFSON (ON FAVORITES IN THE CHASE.): “Throughout the season we’ve seen that some guys have more strengths than others. I think that the sport is a lot about momentum and there are a lot of teams that have that right now. It’s hard to say that there are any favorites. But you can look at teams and know that they’re going to be tough, maybe more so than others. But you definitely can’t sleep on anybody. If things go the right way for the team that seems to be the weakest, and they get some positive results and positive momentum, they could quickly become the favorite. I respect all the teams that have made it. I think they are all good teams with good drivers. We’re going to look at all of them as our stiffest competition.”
GUSTAFSON (ON NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY.): “I think that this is a very important race. It may be, if not the, one of the most important races of the Chase for us particularly. It’s a track that we were OK at in the spring, but we need to be considerably better. It’s going to be a tough race. Track position is a big deal. Restarts are tough there now. Being up front is a big premium. It’s a very important race for us, and right now it is the most important.”
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