Martin looks for the road to his first NASCAR crown

Kyle Busch was 4 years old when Mark Martin won his first race in what is now NASCAR’s premier Sprint Cup Series.

Now, at age 50, Martin is trying to surpass Busch, 24, for the most Cup wins this season with a victory Sunday in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway.

Martin and Busch each have three wins this year, including Martin’s win last weekend in Michigan that extended his revival with Hendrick Motorsports after two years of running a limited schedule.

“It’s a dream come true to win three races before halfway” in the series’ 36-race season, Martin said Friday before qualifying 14th in the 43-car field for Sunday’s race.

Brian Vickers won the pole position with a lap of 93.578 mph in his Red Bull Racing Toyota on the 10-turn, 1.99-mile Infineon road course.

Busch, the defending race winner, qualified second in another Toyota and will start on the outside of the front row. Marcus Ambrose was third and Cup points leader Tony Stewart was fourth.

Martin, with 38 career Cup wins, joined Hendrick for a full season this year in hopes of finally winning his first championship. He won at Phoenix in April, the first 50-year-old to win a Cup race in 16 years, and followed that with a victory at Darlington, S.C.

Martin won his third race last Sunday at Michigan International Speedway when Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle ran out of fuel on the last lap. That lifted Martin to eighth in the point standings from 13th, bolstering his chances of competing in NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup championship playoff.

The top 12 drivers in points after 26 races qualify for the Chase in the season’s final 10 races.

Martin drives the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick, the car that formerly was driven by Busch before Hendrick released Busch after the 2007 season to make room for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Martin also is teamed with Busch’s former crew chief at Hendrick, Alan Gustafson.

“All those guys are very, very smart in what they do and how they set up their cars,” said Busch, who now drives for Joe Gibbs Racing. “Mark is a great driver, and it’s frustrating to have another Hendrick car you have to beat every week.”

Martin didn’t race at Infineon the last two years because of his limited schedule, which many thought was a prelude to retirement.

But he still holds the Cup record for most top-10 finishes at Infineon, 13, and he won the race in 1997 driving for owner Jack Roush. Even so, Martin cautioned that many of those finishes occurred when relatively few Cup drivers were skilled at driving the curvy road course.

Now, races at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, N.Y., the other road course on the Cup circuit, have become “much more of a challenge because all of the drivers are really good at it now, and all the teams put just as much emphasis on the road-course races as they do every race,” Martin said. “It’s a tough deal right now with the competition like it is.”

And racing in June at Infineon is demanding generally, said Martin, who is known for his rigorous physical-fitness regimen. “This one is a physical race and it gets really hot,” said Martin, a native of Batesville, Ark.

Pit stops

Stewart said “it’s a possibility” that his Stewart-Haas Racing might add a third Cup car to its team in 2010 “if the right opportunity comes along and the right sponsor comes along.” . . . . NASCAR said its Hall of Fame being built in Charlotte, N.C., would open May 11, 2010.

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james.peltz@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Toyota/Save Mart 350

Site: Sonoma, Calif.

Schedule: Today, practice (Speed, 9:30 a.m.-noon); Sunday, race, 2 p.m. (TNT, 12:30-5:30 p.m.).

Track: Infineon Raceway (road course, 1.99 miles).

Race distance: 218.9 miles, 110 laps.

Last year: Kyle Busch raced to the fifth of his eight 2008 victories, winning for the first time in Cup competition on a road course. David Gilliland was second, followed by Jeff Gordon. Busch also won on the road course at Watkins Glen, N.Y., in August.

Last week: Mark Martin won for the third time this year, saving just enough gas at Michigan International Speedway. Jimmie Johnson dominated most of the race but ran out of fuel with two laps to go, giving the lead to Greg Biffle, who then ran out of gas on the final lap.

Fast facts: Tony Stewart leads the season standings with 2,189 points, followed by Gordon (2,142), Johnson (2,047), Kurt Busch (1,961) and Ryan Newman (1,934). . . . Gordon has a Cup-record nine road-course wins, five at Sonoma and four at Watkins Glen. . . . Juan Pablo Montoya won the 2007 race for his lone Cup victory. Before joining NASCAR, the Colombian star won seven Formula One races, the 1999 Champ Car title and 11 open-wheel races, including the 2000 Indianapolis 500. . . . Canadian Patrick Carpentier will drive the No. 55 NAPA Toyota in place of owner-driver Michael Waltrip.

Next race: Lenox Industrial Tools 301, June 28, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon, N.H.

-- Associated Press