Martin Wins by a Neck Over Nemechek in Sam’s Town 300

No wonder Mark Martin calls Las Vegas Speedway one of his favorite tracks. If he wins another race as easily as he won the last two here, Bruton Smith may change the name of his track to Martin Speedway.

Martin led 150 of 200 laps Saturday to run away from a Busch Grand National field beefed up by a number of Winston Cup drivers--including series champion Jeff Gordon--to win the Sam’s Town 300.

It was race No. 3 for the Busch series, but Saturday’s 300 miles looked like a preview of today’s Winston Cup race, the Las Vegas 400, for which Martin is defending champion. The first five finishers were Winston Cup regulars and of the 43 starters, 15 were Cup drivers.

As impressive as Martin’s win was the crowd. Estimated at 72,500 by track officials, it was one of the largest gatherings ever for a Busch race. More than 125,000 are expected today.

Lined up behind Martin’s Winn-Dixie Ford at the finish were Joe Nemechek in a Chevy, Jeff Burton in a Ford, and Gordon and Jimmy Spencer in Chevrolets.

“I don’t like it when Cup guys come down and keep Busch regulars out of the race,” said former Busch champion Randy LaJoie, who finished 15th. “I don’t think they’d let starting quarterbacks from the NFL go back to their colleges and play.”

The Cup guys, most of whom have lucrative million-dollar contracts, also took home most of Sam’s Town’s money. Martin collected $87,625 for the win. Last year he won $4.3 million in his Winston Cup car.

“This Taurus was really the car to beat all weekend,” Martin said. “This is one fine race track. I love to race here.”

Martin averaged a record 134.374 mph as the cleanly run race went the final 164 laps without a caution flag. His winning margin over Nemechek was 0.687 seconds, but it appeared that Martin slowed toward the end after building a big lead.

“I know it looked like I was taking it easy, but actually Nemechek kept catching up a tenth or two-tenths [of a second] a lap,” Martin said. “The guys kept telling me he was gaining until I finally said, ‘OK, guys, don’t talk to me anymore. I know he’s coming. Let me get serious and buckle down.’ So we got serious and got it over with.”

The first Busch driver to finish was defending series champion Dale Earnhardt Jr.

One of the few interesting elements of Saturday’s runaway was the back-in-the-pack racing between Gordon, 27, and Earnhardt Jr., 24, a rivalry that NASCAR hopes will highlight racing in the next millennium. Several times they swapped positions in tight quarters. The younger Earnhardt will move up to the Winston Cup next year.

“I guess all the fans want to know how I feel about the first time me and Jeff have run in the Busch series together, and I really enjoyed it,” Earnhardt said. “To run second to that guy is not a bad day. We had him beat a couple of times, but we got to run side by side.

“He’s the best. Everyone wants to be where he’s at right now. I have a lot of admiration for him. He’s good at what he does, and that’s where we all want to be.”

Even though most Winston Cup drivers, Gordon included, said racing Saturday would help in preparing for today’s race, Burton said otherwise.

“These cars are so different,” he said. “I keep saying that but nobody believes me. These cars are so different than the Winston Cup cars are, we don’t learn a whole lot. But we do learn a little bit.

“Any time that you sit in something to drive and get to run 300 miles and you don’t learn something, you’re not paying attention.”

Bobby Labonte and Michael Waltrip will start on the front row today and hope they have better luck than they did Saturday.

Labonte, who qualified his Pontiac at a record 170.643 mph for today’s race, was never a factor in his Busch car and finished 16th. Waltrip, who has gone 396 Winston Cup races without a win, qualified his Chevrolet at 170.159 and was looking forward to Saturday’s race to gain some track experience.

He got very little. On the 34th lap, he was tagged from behind on a caution flag restart and his well-named Band-Aid Chevy was knocked out of commission.

As an indication of how competitive Winston Cup racing has become, seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt was unable to qualify on the second day and was forced to take a provisional starting position. He will start 38th in the 43-car field.

Las Vegas 400

When: 11:30 a.m. today, Channel 7

Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Defending champion: Mark Martin