Martin Is Fond of Fontana

There are three things Mark Martin has learned to love about Winston Cup racing: the horsepower in Jack Roush’s Ford engines, new wide-open superspeedways and California Speedway in particular.

The little man from Arkansas, one of the fiercest competitors in NASCAR for nine years, completely dominated the California 500, leading 165 of the 250 laps, to win his third race of the season. The other two tracks where he won, Texas and Las Vegas, are similar to California with wide, sweeping turns where he can make the most of the power Roush gives him.

And he loves California Speedway.

On Saturday, Martin dominated the International Race of Champions the same way he did in the California 500 before 115,000 fans Sunday. And last year in the 500, had Jeff Gordon not outsnookered the Roush team with fuel conservation, Martin would have then, too.

“This is a dream come true to win this race,” Martin said in Victory Circle. “It was a pretty big disappointment last year with our fuel mileage and we have been working harder now to fix that.

“Thank you to Roger Penske and anyone who has anything to do with the California Speedway because this place is awesome. And so are Jack Roush’s engines. The longer we ran, the better we got.”

Martin was running so strong late in the race that his final lap of 177.980 mph after 250 times around the D-shaped two-mile oval was only 5 mph under his qualifying speed of 180.248.

“When you’ve got a driver like Martin, it’s unbelievable,” said crew chief Jimmy Fenning.

Roush had four of his five cars finish in the top 10: Martin first, Chad Little sixth, Johnny Benson eighth and Jeff Burton 10th.

Jeremy Mayfield, in another Ford Taurus from the Penske-Kranefuss team, finished second, 1.287 seconds back. This enabled him to take over the Winston Cup points lead after 10 races although he is still looking for his first career win.

“If we couldn’t win we wanted to come in second,” said Mayfield, who drove in tandem with teammate Rusty Wallace most of the race before Wallace dropped out because of engine problems. “I hate it for Rusty and them. They didn’t need that bad luck.

“We fought hard today but we just came up a little short of that No. 6 car, he was pretty stout.”

Hendrick teammates Terry Labonte and Jeff Gordon finished third and fourth in Chevrolet Monte Carlos.

Wallace, the points leader going into the race, was up among the leaders for 240 of the 250 laps before his Taurus lost a cylinder. With 33 of the 43 starters still running when Martin took the checkered flag, Wallace fell all the way from second to 34th place.

“I don’t know if it dropped a valve or what it did, but it lost a cylinder about five laps earlier and then at the very end it let go completely,” said Wallace. “It was a bad, bad loss for the points today. We were sitting there running second and it looked like we’d finish second and gain some points, but boy, I tell you, we took a big hit instead.”

The engine failure dropped Wallace from first to fourth in points. Mayfield leads with 1,457, followed by Labonte with 1,421, Gordon with 1,410, Wallace with 1,384 and Martin with 1,384.

Darrell Waltrip, driving in Teresa Earnhardt’s Chevrolet while regular driver Steve Park recovers from injuries, was a surprise fifth-place finisher. It was the 51-year-old three-time champion’s highest finish since he was fifth a year ago at Sears Point.

“I was really proud of myself for sucking it up and getting a top five finish,” said Waltrip. “This meant everything to me, particularly at the end when we had a lot to lose and a lot to gain. I’m tickled to death. This was good and kind of unexpected.”

Martin averaged 140.220 mph, a speed slowed considerably by six caution flags for 35 laps.

One of the cautions turned into a red-flag situation that stopped action for 26 minutes after Bill Elliott was caught in a fiery accident for the second time in two weeks.

The accident was triggered on lap 86 by Dale Jarrett’s blown engine, which spewed oil in the first turn. Elliott was warned of the oil by his spotter and appeared to have escaped trouble only to have a spinning Kyle Petty bump him into the outside wall where Elliott’s car caught fire.

Three other cars were caught in the melee and went spinning into the grass infield, but all managed to remain in the race.

Elliott was taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he was treated for multiple bruises, a broken finger and a broken bone in his foot before he was released.

The race, under a mix of clouds and sunshine, started off as if it was going to be a parade instead of a race.

Gordon, starting from the pole, led the first 21 laps and Mayfield the next 13 before Martin first flexed his muscle. For the first 35 laps, the most excitement other than the two lead changes was Mayfield lapping Brett Bodine.

The first round of pit stops, which came under green-flag conditions, mixed things up, however, and from then on most of the day centered around Martin and whether he could escape the bad luck that haunted him a year ago.

“With Rusty Wallace behind me, you better believe [I had concerns] every time a caution flag came out,” Martin said. “I felt like I had a faster car, but that sure didn’t mean I could beat him. When you’ve got guys with that much experience and that much determination, I knew I had to step on it.”

The win was Martin’s 25th in 367 career starts, all but 53 with Roush.

“I could never win a race, ever, if it weren’t for the people that work at Mooresville [N.C.] in the shop and all the guys that work on the engines up in Livonia [Mich.]. I’m real lucky to have the opportunity to work with Jack Roush.”

Their relationship has lasted nine years, the most for any driver in Winston Cup. They way things are going, it ought to last nine more.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE FINISH LINE

1. MARK MARTIN: FORD

* Average speed: 140.220 mph.

* Margin of victory: 1.287 seconds (about 15 car lengths).

* Earnings: $141,375

2. JEREMY MAYFIELD: FORD

3. TERRY LABONE: CHEVROLET

4. JEFF GORDON: CHEVROLET

5. DARRELL WALTRIP: CHEVROLET

* RESULTS: C12

* NOTES: C12

* BILL ELLIOTT’S CRASH: C13