Mark Martin could hardly believe he was standing in Victory Lane.
"We got the lead in the first half of the race and just stayed out front and that's a formula for heartbreak in my world because, more often than not, something goes wrong," Martin said.
Not Sunday in the Banquet 400 at Kansas Speedway.
PHOTO: AP
Teammate Greg Biffle did give the 46-year-old Martin a late scare, but the veteran racer remained out front for his 35th career victory. It was Martin's first points victory -- he did win an exhibition event in Charlotte in May -- since June 2004 at Dover.
To get this one, Martin had to hold off his Roush Racing teammates -- a lot of them.
Martin and Biffle led a team sweep of the top three spots and another Roush driver, Matt Kenseth, finished fifth.
But it was Joe Gibbs Racing's Tony Stewart who padded his lead in NASCAR's Chase for the Nextel Cup championship with a fourth-place finish. He increased his lead from four to 75 points by racing to his 15th finish of eighth or better in his last 16 starts. More important, it was his third top-five finish in the first four events of this year's 10-race Chase.
Biffle, another of the 10 drivers in the Chase, passed Stewart for second place 30 laps from the end of the 267-lap race and went after Martin, cutting a lead of about 20 car-lengths to less than half that.
But Martin was able to hold on in his Ford, leading Biffle and Carl Edwards, who also got by Stewart, to the finish line. Martin jumped from ninth to seventh in the standings, 113 points behind Stewart with six races left in the Chase.
"That's too far back," said Martin, that pessimism showing up again. "We can go and win us some more and you never now. But it's going to be a lot harder now than it was going to be if we could have finished in the top 10 at Talladega."
Martin's crash early in the race Oct. 2 at Talladega Superspeedway relegated him to a 41st-place finish and, worse, cost him valuable points, sending the four-time series runner-up tumbling to ninth place, 138 points out of first.
Sunday's race was a bit of redemption for Martin, who took the lead for the first time with a two-tire stop on lap 122 and wound up leading three times for 139 laps, including the final 48 trips around the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval.
Crew chief Pat Tryson knows what it is going to take to get his driver back into the title battle.
"I said after last week that we've got to try to make up 20 points a race," Tryson said. "I think we made up 20 points today, so we just have to keep doing that."
Asked if he was worried when Biffle began to catch him in the waning laps, Martin said he was determined not to let that happen.
"I don't want to lose," he said. "I always tell these guys, `You give me the lead and four fresh tires with the end in sight, and you'll never get a fight like you'll get from me.' I had the race car to do it.
"I ran as hard as I could run there, in the beginning maybe saved a little bit, and then when Greg started coming I stepped it up. I could have drove maybe a little harder, but I might have wrecked. That's as fast as I could go and keep him behind me."
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