There was a time when Mark Martin wondered whether he could still do this.
Racing cars for a living was what he loved to do, and if he could, he wanted to. But he didn’t want to be a burden. He didn’t want to bring down the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team for which he had so much respect.
Those doubts all seem silly now.
Despite late concerns about having enough fuel, Martin, 50, won his second race of the year Saturday night at Darlington Raceway. It was also Martin’s second win at the track. The win came a few days after Martin extended his contract with Hendrick Motorsports to race the full season in 2010. Los Angeles Times
“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” Martin said. “This is a big surprise. We had a strong car, but I never expected to win. Alan Gustafson is absolutely the best. I may have been his childhood hero, but I’m living a second childhood now—and he’s my childhood hero.
“We had a good enough car to do it, and pit strategy put us in a position to pull it off.”
Johnson, who gained two positions to fourth in the points, survived a series of calamities to claim the runner-up finish.
“I got trapped on pit road, I spun out trying to get to my pit stall, just a bunch of stuff—man, it was a just chaotic night,” Johnson said. “I’m very relieved and proud of the race team, because we kept our heads and fought through it all night long and got ourselves a good finish.”
“He’s Superman,” Martin said of Johnson. “Three championships in a row. The guy’s incredible. I thought he was trying to snooker me, lollygag back there and all of a sudden mash the gas, and I’d be off-guard. I was trying to save gas, but I couldn’t let him get near me, because I know how tough he is.” NASCAR.com
“This is one of the most difficult places we run,” said Tony Stewart, who finished third.
Ryan Newman, Stewart’s teammate, was fourth, followed by points leader Jeff Gordon. Brad Keselowski, in seventh, gave Hendrick four cars in the top seven.
“This is as good as I’ve seen us in some time,” Alan Gustafson, Martin’s crew chief, said of Hendrick’s garage.
Gordon held on to his points lead, while Stewart took over second place from Kurt Busch. Johnson moved up two spots to fourth.
One by one, the slick surface knocked out the top contenders.
Kyle Busch, the defending race champ and last week’s Richmond winner, saw his chance to repeat disappear when he slammed the wall on lap 274.
Not long after, Carl Edwards was tapped by teammate Greg Biffle, hit the wall and was hemmed in as the field moved around him. Edwards then was hit with a one-lap penalty after he drove right instead of left to make it into the pits. The Associated Press
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