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DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Mark Martin showed who's boss in the
Roush Racing garage at Darlington Raceway, holding off teammate
Jeff Burton to win the SunCom 200 on Saturday.
Martin, the pole sitter, and his Roush Ford swept past Burton and his Roush Ford with 23 laps to go and survived a side-by-side dual in the final stretch for his seventh Busch Grand National win at Darlington.
|  | | Mark Martin reached his third Victory Lane in four Busch races this season. |
It was Martin's third victory in four Busch tries this season.
"It's too bad for Jeff Burton. He had the fastest car there at the end, but I've lost a lot of races that way," said Martin, the Busch series' all-time leader with 43 victories in 18 years.
Matt Kenseth, a Roush teammate of the two for Winston Cup but not in Busch, slipped past Burton for second, just .192 seconds behind the winner. Burton was a carlength behind in third, followed by Jeff Green, Todd Bodine, Hank Parker Jr., David Green, Ron Hornaday, Elton Sawyer and Lydon Amick.
Roush racers have left their mark on Darlington the past two seasons. Martin won the Dura Lube 200 Busch event last fall, while Burton stole both rain-shortened Winston cup races here a year ago.
And this one again came down to Martin and Burton. They qualified 1-2, led a combined 125 of 147 laps, swapped the lead between them 18 times and pushed past anyone else that got in their way.
After Adam Petty -- whose father Kyle wants Darlington paved back
into the fish pond it was a half century ago -- started a seven-car
wreck by bumping Jimmie Johnson, Martin jumped past Burton at the
restart on lap 124.
Burton kept looking low, often charging to his teammate's door, but could not get past. His best chance came with a lap to go when they drag raced through the back stretch, Burton low and Martin high.
In the end, a wobble by Burton and Martin's power provided the victory.
"We raced each other real clean, even there on the last lap," Martin said. "We went in side by side and we were going to have to race for it and that's a terrible thing to do down in (turns) one and two, but I went for it. I got in the gas and got ahead of him and thought, 'I may have this thing.' "
Burton thought he was a little better than his teammate at the end. "But you've got to be a lot better to win at a place like this," he said.
Martin, who won $40,475, averaged 113.519 mph in a race slowed by five cautions over 28 laps.
Kenseth retained the points lead by 98 over Martin, who moved up
a spot to second with the victory.
Bodine, who trails Kenseth by 140 points in third, said you can
almost guarantee you'll be chasing a Roush car to the end. "It's
typical of what's going on the series," Bodine said.
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AUDIO/VIDEO
 Mark Martin says he won a race he shouldn't have won.
wav: 98 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Jeff Burton says it was a good race.
wav: 120 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Matt Kenseth says he worked hard to get a second-place finish.
wav: 143 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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