News & Notes
RACE WINNER: Mark Martin won the 2009 Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, his second win of five that season. After starting 12th, the No. 5 team battled back from a loose lug nut during a pit stop on Lap 162 and led the final 46 laps of the prestigious race. It was his second Southern 500 victory. His first win at the historic racetrack happened on Sept. 5, 1993, when he led 178 laps.
MARTIN AT DARLINGTON: Along with his two career victories, Martin has earned 17 top-five finishes and 26 top-10s in 44 Sprint Cup starts at the short track. He has led 801 laps at Darlington and has finished all but three Cup events he’s entered there.
LOOP STATISTICS: Martin has the 10th-best average running position—13.287—in the last six Darlington races, and he’s transferred that into a fourth-best average finish of 9.8 during that time.
POLE SITTER: Martin’s next Sprint Cup Series pole position will be the 50th of his career and will tie for eighth on the all-time pole winner’s list. He has earned two career poles at Darlington—the first on April 2, 1989, and the latest on March 22, 1998.
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: Martin and the GoDaddy.com team advanced to 13th in the Sprint Cup standings, six points behind 12th-place Juan Pablo Montoya and 19 points outside of the top 10.
CHASSIS CHOICE: Crew chief Lance McGrew has chosen Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 5-656 for Saturday’s race at Darlington. This is a brand new chassis that never has been raced or tested.
RUNNER-UP RECORD: Martin is tied with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon for the most career runner-up Sprint Cup finishes—59—of any active driver. Both Martin and Gordon are tied with Cale Yarborough for the fifth-most runner-up finishes in the history of the sport.
HENDRICK AT DARLINGTON: In 48 events (146 starts) at Darlington Raceway, Hendrick Motorsports has earned 13 wins, 39 top-five finishes and 63 top-10s.
APPROACHING 200: With Jimmie Johnson’s win on April 17 at Talladega, Hendrick Motorsports has earned 196 Cup victories. The organization ranks first in NASCAR’s modern era for wins and second all-time behind Petty Enterprises, which has 268 victories.
Quotes
MARK MARTIN, DRIVER, NO. 5 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET (ON THE CHALLENGES OF DARLINGTON RACEWAY.):
“Darlington is known as one of the tougher tracks on the circuit. All the drivers like it because it’s a track that really puts the race into the driver’s hands. It’s intense for sure. I’m a driver who likes to slide my car all around the racetrack, but that’s impossible at Darlington. If you slide at all, you’re going to end up in the wall for sure. I really have to work on my driving style for this race, and Lance (McGrew, crew chief) and the guys will really have to work on a setup that gives me the best of both worlds. It’s tough. It’s only a two-day weekend, but it’s a grueling one. It’s the kind of challenge that I look forward to.”
MARTIN (ON THE TENACITY OF THE GODADDY.COM TEAM.):
“I’m telling you, when the chips are down, this team gets it done. I’m sitting on pit road during the Richmond race last week with a torn-up race car and I thought for sure we were going to go a lap down. We must have pitted seven or eight times under that caution. Those guys worked fast, but they worked right. The car was fixed so it wouldn’t affect the handling. I was amazed. Our left rear seized up in the last 15 or 20 laps but that was nothing of their doing. We fought back for a 14th-place finish, which is good for us to save what could have been a real costly points night.”
LANCE McGREW, CREW CHIEF, NO. 5 GODADDY.COM CHEVROLET (ON THE CHALLENGES OF DARLINGTON RACEWAY.):
“Darlington is called ‘Too Tough to Tame’ for a reason. The drivers are right on the edge out there every lap. If they get into that corner just a little bit deeper they’re going to hit the wall. It’s so difficult, when you’re out there on the track, to remember to race the racetrack and not the guy next to you. You’ll get in trouble every lap if you forget that at all.”
McGREW (ON THE KEY FACTORS OF DARLINGTON.):
“Tires aren’t as big of a player as they used to be, but they are still a player. Tire management has always been important, but just as important is self-control. It’s important to keep the side of your car intact because every time you touch the wall your car gets a little bit worse than it was before. It doesn’t take too many ‘Darlington Stripes’ to take you out of contention for the win.”
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