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DOVER, Del. -- After winning a career-best seven times in
1998, nobody figured Mark Martin would be looking for his second
victory this season in September.
On Sunday, Martin won the MBNA Gold 400 for the third year in a
row. The victory ended a 25-race drought, since the second event of
the season at Rockingham, N.C.
"We needed this one," Martin said. "This team's been behind me 100 percent, and I didn't see any change of attitude. This was sweet."
This was a vintage performance by the 40-year-old from Batesville, Ark.
First, he hung on gamely as rookie Tony Stewart devastated the
field for most of the first half of the race at Dover Downs
International Speedway. Then, he waged a magnificent battle with
Winston Cup points leader Dale Jarrett.
Martin fell back steadily after Jarrett took the lead on the
255th of 400 laps around the Monster Mile, but maintained his pace
until Jarrett began to slow down.
"We needed to run smart today," Martin said. "I knew we had
plenty of time, and I didn't want to pressure the tires."
Martin caught Jarrett on the backstretch on lap 313, passed him
easily and rode off to lead by 5½ seconds.
Once he went in front -- on the 23rd lead change of the race -- Martin was behind for only two laps during exchanges of green-flag stops. He assumed the lead for good on lap 349.
Then came a final test. Ricky Craven hit the wall on the 354th lap, bunching the field and putting a rejuvenated Stewart back on the lead lap.
But Martin was equal to the task. He drove away from Jarrett
when the green flag waved on lap 359.
"Once we restarted, there was no more saving tires," Martin
said. "We had to go for it."
Then came the job of holding off Stewart, who got by Jarrett
with 30 laps to go. Stewart, after getting a bad set of tires on
lap 155, had fallen three laps behind.
"I was angry," Stewart said. "Today the tires were terrible.
"It was one of those good bad days, where we were able to run
our pace and then the thing wanted to keep crashing. We didn't know
what changes to make because we were so inconsistent."
But Stewart's patience paid off, and at the end his Pontiac was
the only car within striking distance of Martin's Ford. Still, that
wasn't close enough, and Martin won by 1.1 seconds.
It was the 31st career victory for Martin. But he didn't make
much progress in his bid to catch third-place finisher Jarrett in
the points race. Jarrett leads Martin by 257 points. Bobby Labonte,
who finished fifth in his Pontiac, fell to third, 264 points back.
Jarrett, who felt much better than he had 24 hours earlier when
back pain prevented him from tying his shoes, was happy with his
finish.
"We were no match for Mark," he said. "He could go wherever
he wanted. All in all it was a good day.
But Martin was not to be denied.
"We had a great setup today," he said. "We just didn't need
to have something go wrong."
Busch Grand National ace Matt Kenseth, who next year will drive
a car co-owned by Martin, and his boss, Jack Roush, was fourth in a
Ford.
"We were too loose at the beginning of the run," Kenseth said.
"They ate my lunch for the first 20-30 laps.
"I was surprised that my Busch crew was able to give us such a
good effort. I'm looking to putting together a good team next
year."
Martin teammate Jeff Burton finished sixth, the last car on the
lead lap. Chad Little was seventh, a lap down, giving Roush Racing
four cars in the top seven.
Martin collected $115,710 from the $2.2 million purse.
He averaged 127.434 mph in a race slowed by caution times for 22 laps. There were 25 lead changes among 10 drivers. Martin led seven times for 161 laps.
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ALSO SEE
Notebook: Jarrett got better in a hurry
Race for the Winston Cup
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