Martin Excels Again in Truck Race

Mark Martin is used to being called a Buschwhacker, a Nextel Cup regular who routinely wins NASCAR Busch Series races. Now, maybe truckstopper should be added to NASCAR’s lexicon.

For the second week in a row, Martin won a Craftsman Truck Series event for team owner Jack Roush, taking first in the extended 106-lap RaceTickets.com 200 on Friday on the two-mile oval at California Speedway.

Martin held off Todd Bodine in a two-lap shootout under a green-white-checkered finish after a crash by Mike Wallace on Lap 99 of the scheduled 100.

“I wish Mark would run with us every week,” said Bodine, who won the last three 2005 races for Germain Motor Co. “When you race against a competitor that good, it only makes you better.”

Martin, who qualified seventh and led 63 laps, took the lead for the last time on Lap 83, passing Bodine on the front straight, and won by 0.131 of a second. They were followed by Bodine’s teammate, defending series champion Ted Musgrave, who won this race in 2002 and 2003.

It was the same finishing order as the season opener last week at Daytona International Speedway. It too had a green-white-checkered finish.

Martin, 47, in his final season in Nextel Cup, is running seven truck races, 56 races on the season. He became the first driver to win in all three series, as well as an IROC race, at one track.

“We want to beat them and be great when we do,” Musgrave said of facing a Cup regular in one of NASCAR’s support series. “We want people like that out here. The more the merrier.”

David Ragan, a candidate from the “Driver X” reality TV series, will drive the No. 6 Scotts Ford when Martin isn’t. Martin will drive it at the next race, March 17 in Atlanta.

Bodine, who started fifth, appeared to have the truck to beat. He was dropped from first place to 34th on a Lap 25 restart, a penalty for a passing violation on an earlier restart. He was fifth on Lap 57, and third by Lap 65. But when Martin passed Bodine underneath on Lap 68, there was a clear pecking order at the lead.

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A no-show in the truck race was rookie Kraig Kinser, son of sprint racing legend Steve Kinser.

He was 20th among 38 in qualifying, but because he drives for newly formed Morgan-Dollar Motorsports, there weren’t enough owner points to receive one of the 30 automatic berths for the 36-car race. Among eight drivers who needed to qualify on speed, six were faster than Kinser, who ran 175.319 mph.

Kinser, who moved from the back of the pack to eighth before crashing in his debut at Daytona, was eighth in Happy Hour and was faster in qualifying than two top-10 finishers in last year’s championship, Bobby Hamilton and Johnny Benson.

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Shane Hmiel, one of NASCAR’s top prospects, failed his third substance abuse test in 2 1/2 years and was suspended for life by the sanctioning body.

Hmiel, 26, whose father, Steve, is technical director for Dale Earnhardt Inc., was suspended in September 2003, but was reinstated five months later after completing a rehabilitation program. He was suspended again in June after failing a second test.

Hmiel was working toward reinstatement in 2007 as part of a program that included medical and psychological reviews and frequent testing.