Mark Martin runs well at Phoenix, but loses ground in championship race
Hendrick Motorsports' Mark Martin finished fourth in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 but fell to 108 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. // Mark Sluder, NASCAR Scene
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AVONDALE, Ariz. – Mark Martin and crew chief Alan Gustafson were good but not great. And that was the difference Sunday in NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Jimmie Johnson making his margin bigger leading into next weekend’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Johnson dominated the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on the way to his seventh win of the season. Martin had a strong car but finished fourth, enabling Johnson to boost his point lead from 73 to 108 over the second-place Martin.
“It was a great run, a great team effort and a really great race car,” Martin said. “It was a really good run. We were right there. We were really good on long runs, and that last run was what we needed, but the car got a little tight and wasn’t quite what it had been on some of the long runs.
“I really thought I could get to him [Johnson]. I thought it was going to be a four-car race there. With 35 to go, the way my car had been coming on, I really thought, ‘This is going to be fun. It’s going to be a four-car race.’ But it kind of fizzled out. But I’m very satisfied. It was a good job by this team.”
Johnson led 238 laps. Martin never led. But the difference in their cars was not huge.
“It was a good, solid day,” Gustafson said. “We ran good. Pit stops were good. We just weren’t great, and to win them you have to be great. We fought track position a little all day long, which is tough. We weren’t perfect, and to win these things you have to be perfect.
“The 48 [of Johnson] had track position all day long. If we had had that, we might have been able to compete with them.”
Going to Homestead, Martin faces long odds. He has a shot at the championship only if Johnson finishes 26th or worse.
“That makes that pretty cut and dried,” Gustafson said. “We have to win it for that scenario to play out, so we’ll just focus on doing that and going down there to Homestead and enjoy it.
“That is a really tough track. It’s going to be hot and slick. You can’t be too loose in the corner. You have to roll the center really well. You have to get off the corner. It’s tough to do, but we’ve got the right driver for that. He’s really good down there. He can deal with a lot of those issues.”
Martin said he will approach Homestead “the same as I did today. No different.”
