After a tough outing in Atlanta last weekend, Martin and the No. 01 U. S. Army Team return to action this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway where Martin finished third in the spring.
AT TEXAS
Starts: 13 (11)
Wins: 1 (-)
Top 5’s: 5 (1)
Top 10’s: 7 (1)
Poles: 0
Highest finish: 1st (4/5/98)
First time: 4/6/97 (38th)
Last year: 11/5/06 (22nd)
Last time: 4/15/07(3rd)
Martin At Texas
Martin will make his 14th start at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, where he won the second race in 1998. He has five top fives and seven top 10s in 13 starts at the 1.5-mile track. Martin finished third at Texas in the spring and 22nd in this event last season.
Rare 43rd
Martin finished 43rd last weekend in Atlanta after getting caught up in an early accident. It was only the fourth time in 696 starts that Martin has finished 43rd in a Cup race. In two of the three previous finishes of 43rd, Martin finished 42nd or worse in the next race. In the other, he finished second.
Looking To Tomorrow
Martin and the team spent Monday and Tuesday at Atlanta Motor Speedway testing the Car of Tomorrow. Martin will not start in another COT race this season, but the Nextel Cup circuit will move full time to the COT starting next season.
Looking To Next Season
Martin plans on running a similar Nextel Cup schedule in 2008 as he did in ‘07, making starts in approximately 26 races.
Part Time Schedule, Full-time Results
This will be Martin’s 23rd start in 2007. Despite having taken 11 races off this season, Martin is still 26th in the Nextel Cup driver standings. Moving into the ‘Chase’, Martin had a better average finish (12.4) than 10 of the 12 drivers in the “Chase for the Nextel Cup. ” Currently his 13.9 average finish is better than six of the 12.
Quoting Mark
“We are looking forward to going back to Texas. We had a good run there in the spring and we sure could use another one about now. We had a tough race last week in Atlanta, getting caught up in an accident and finishing last, but that’s the first wreck I’ve been in all year and you can’t complain about that at this point in the season.
“Texas is a really fast track and racing there can be a lot of fun, especially when you find a way to make your car go really fast through those corners. This No. 01 U. S. Army team has been through a lot this year. We’ve gone from inches away from winning the Daytona 500 to finishing last in Atlanta next week. These guys deserve a good run and hopefully we can go to Texas and post another strong finish. ”
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