Despite problems that Mark Martin encountered in his Car of Tomorrow (COT) debut Saturday night, the savvy U. S. Army driver still managed to pull off a respectable 12th-place finish at Phoenix International Raceway.
Martin, who missed NASCAR’s previous two COT races (Bristol and Martinsville) as part of his limited 2007 schedule with Ginn Racing, is 10th in the Nextel Cup driver standings. In the six races in which he has competed, Martin has averaged a 6.16 finish. In owner points, the 01 Army team is ranked fifth.
“That was a pretty hard race tonight, ” said Martin. “We never really did get a handle on the car, and we just weren’t able to get going all night. I couldn’t get the Army Chevy to hook up coming off (turn) four like we were able to do during Friday’s practice. We still have work to do on our Car of Tomorrow program, but we’ll keep plugging away and get better. ”
“Still, Ryan (Pemberton, crew chief) did a great job calling the race and the pit crew was once again awesome, ” added Martin. “When you don’t have it all together and still finish 12th, that says something about the quality of this team. We’re like our soldiers, we never give up. “
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