Martin Wins Phoenix, Others Have Trouble
Submitted by RACING NEWS DIGEST
Congrats to Mark Martin for his first win in almost 4 years (is that right??)!! I have always like Mark Martin so I was glad to see him back in victory lane. Martin obviously had the dominant car all night. I also found it interesting that Mark Martin’s crew chief Alan Gustafson has idolized Mark Martin ever since he was a kid.
Mark Martins win also vaulted him up in the points standings by 5 positions to 13th, the most of any other driver in Saturday nights race. Martin is now only 9 points behind Matt Kenseth for 12th place in the points.
One of the funniest things in last nights race I thought was when Michael Waltrip lost control of his car and took out Robby Gordon. In post accident interview Robby Gordon said “..looking forward to have a new driver in the #55 next year”. I found that to be hilarious and I don’t know why. I like Waltip and I like Gordon. I think I like Gordon because he is a hot head and blows his top easily. Or does things like burn outs even when NASCAR repeatedly tells him he is not the winner.
Oh and hear we go with Dale Earnhardt Jr. again. Jr. ran a good race. They had problems getting his car hooked up in the beginning, but once they did it seemed they had a strong car. Then to make up some positions they got off sequence with the pit stops and ran up front for awhile, in fact he led twice for a total of 63 laps. Then they were not able to get the car back into the pits under caution like they had hoped. Dale Earnhardt Jr. ended up spinning into the wall with a little help from Casey Mears.
It appeared the Casey Mears just got into Jr. a little bit. After the race on the “cool down” lap Dale Earnhardt Jr. in his frustration spun Casey Mears. Mear, in retaliation, came up to Jr. and started banging the back of this car.
We need more great stuff like that on the scene. If you ask me Jr was in the wrong to start with, but who cares!
Dale Earnhardt Jr. ended the night with a 31st place 1 lap down finish. This dropped him to 19th in the points. Don’ know how many are going to like hearing this, but I am doubting that Dale Earnhardt Jr. will make the chase this year. There just seems to be to much going on with that team with out the blame falling in one location.
How about David Stremme. Did he spin again last night? Yes he did. I may be wrong about this and my memory may be failing a little, but it seems that we see ol’ Stremme spinning a lot. And he did it solo at Phoenix last night, which is also mostly been the norm I believe.
Ryan Newman and that #39 team also struggled. They had radio problems all night where the team had a difficult time (almost impossible time) hearing Newman, but generally speaking he could hear them. After Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s spin with 12 laps to go, the team called Newman in for 2 tires. Newman was running 14th at the time. Either Newman said the hell with it and ignored them, or didn’t hear them, he stayed out.
He got credited with leading 4 laps (all under that caution) and of course got his bonus points which he is probably desperately trying to get as many as he can. But on the restart he got ran over by everyone. Mark Martin got around him with out even trying on the restart and as Newman got loose in the turn a lot more cars flew past him. So Newman finished 16th.
I think that was a bad gamble that Newman made. He actually had a strong car. I think he could have maybe grabbed a top 10 finish if he would have come in and got some tires.
Newman holds onto 17th in points and I think we will see him in the chase this year.
Speaking of Newman, Tony Stewart (SMOKE) had another great night and it appeared a couple of times that he may be able to Mark Martin a run for his money. But SMOKE had to settle on a second place finish landing him up one position to 4th in the points. Only 6 points back from Kurt Busch and 104 back from the leader Jeff Gordon.
