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Welcome to the Cup Scene Daily for
Vol. III,No.VIXII FINAL EDITION
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Quote Of The Day: 7 DAY ARCHIVE SundayMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday INSIDE TODAY'S ISSUE: Waltrip leaving DEI? Rudd: Rookies today are different Wallace fined for bumping teammate Points aren't the issue for McMurray Evernham picks up sponsor for Elliott Points leader leads testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway Busch looks to pad Cup lead at Phoenix Double duty for two this weekend Darlington Raceway presidents' daughter to be laid to rest today Burton eyes comeback Top ten heading to Phoenix Cup Scene readers speak out
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Happy Birthday: Derrike Cope, Tony Gibson, Greg Sacks After dominating Sunday's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 for some three hours, only to lose in the final moments after a questioned caution, Mark Martin wasn't thinking championship, he was just thinking loss. But when he realizes that he's back in contention, he may take a different tack.
"I need a little bit of time to wind down, and as I wind down I'll pick up a piece of paper and see what those numbers say. They tell me that it's closer than it was. There are three races to go, and we should run well at all of them. Today we did everything that we could do." Closer? Martin is back in the championship chase, only 81 points down, just two weeks after his hopes had been dashed at Charlotte. Now he has 20 days to make it happen. And with 2005 his last full-time season on the stock-car tour, to end a NASCAR career that began in 1981, Martin now has what could be his last chance to win what has been an elusive championship. Sunday evening, though, Martin was still consoling his crew chief, Pat Tryson, for a no-win situation late. And Martin was making it clear that he had a bone to pick with a couple of his teammates. "Pat was a sitting duck." Martin said about the dilemma presented by a late yellow flag. "He lost either way when they threw that caution. "If I find out that that caution was for the show, I'll choke. "I saw Kevin Harvick coasting slow, and if I'd have been NASCAR, I would have told somebody to push him off of pit road. It wasn't a problem, and I hate that. "But we were a sitting duck. If we pitted, they stay out and win. If we stay out, they pit. So it was nobody's fault, but those caution flags." That was not the only thing playing against Martin down the stretch. With Martin going for the win and for a few more points in the suddenly tight championship battle, teammates Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle did him no favors. And Martin was not pleased. Edwards, however, did have a shot at the win, amazing for a rookie with only a few Cup races under his belt. "I told you all those weren't my teammates," Martin said with a laugh. "If they were my teammates, they'd only be on the racetrack to make sure I won. They were trying to win themselves. They're competitors, and I was having to race them just as I was having to race the rest." Second-guessing, if Martin had pitted for tires when winner Jimmie Johnson did, with 25 laps left, Martin probably would have won. "I thought we'd be OK," Martin said, referring to the tires he had on his car. "If we pitted, they'd stay out, and it would be incredibly difficult for us to win." However, when the last caution came out a few miles later, Martin did pit, and in the final 10 laps he moved from eighth to second, and probably could have won with a few more laps anyway. When teammate Kurt Busch blew an engine early, Martin said, he wasn't worried. "I felt it was how luck goes," Martin said. "I felt he was having some of the 'even-up luck' that I had early in the year after I broke several engines. "I didn't feel like we had a problem with our engines. I felt like he had a problem with luck. I never felt ours was going to let us down. "We've had incredible horsepower and terrific reliability since I showed them I could break their engines. They've gone back and fixed them. I demonstrated what they had wasn't strong enough for me. It was strong enough for the rest of the guys, but it wasn't strong enough for me. Now it's just incredible horsepower and reliability." Edwards said he was deferring to his veteran teammate: "I decided before the green flag that if he took off and was really fast, I'd do my best, but if I wasn't faster than him, I wasn't going to race him really hard. "I was going to let him go because he had the fastest car all day. But we had better tires. "When we took off I thought 'Man, if my tires stick really well, if we're really fast, I'll go as hard as I can.' This team, every week we're racing for our jobs next year. And we need a full-time sponsor, and winning a race at this time would be good for us. "I never thought in my whole career I'd be that close to a victory in this level of sports, so that's a pretty neat feeling." ORIGINAL STORY-Winston Salem News Journal
After winning at Martinsville – his second consecutive triumph as the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series title chase winds to a finish – Johnson and his Hendrick teammates were immediately pulled aside, any joy at the victory by one of their own immediately dissolved. Leading only 17 laps at Atlanta in a race dominated by Mark Martin for 227, Johnson wiped tears from his eyes, took a congratulatory cell phone call from Hendrick, climbed from his car and was soon inundated with hugs from his three on-track teammates and their overwhelmed crewmen. The first to enfold himself in Johnson’s arms? Championship co-contender Jeff Gordon, who couldn’t have appeared happier had the win been his. Veteran Hendrick teammate Terry Labonte and rookie Brian Vickers soon joined in what was an unbridled yet respectful celebration. Nothing had changed; those lost were still gone. But Johnson’s improbable third consecutive victory when his season had appeared to be going south released a collective gasp of fresh air. “There is no medicine like (it),” said Johnson, who added he was awed by the 100,000 or so fans in the grandstands that hooted and hollered their support of the unexpected and surreal outcome. “It doesn’t change anything and we don’t get back our friends that we lost. But it makes us feel a little better to be able to do something like this.” Atop the points the first half of 2004, Johnson fell into a mini-slump after the field of title contenders was whittled to 10 with 10 races remaining. His victory, and Martin’s runner-up finish, made them the only two drivers to advance in the standings entering Sunday’s Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway as the countdown to the event in which a championship will be crowned is reduced to three. Johnson, who gained two positions in the title fight and is 59 points down to leader Kurt Busch, and Martin, who gained one position and is 81 points back, were given a hefty lift when their title rivals fell out one by one like a set of bowling pins. Having lived a charmed life with top-six finishes the last six weeks, Busch took the first and hardest hit on the 51st lap when his engine sputtered and left him 42nd. with Johnson suddenly breathing down his neck. Gordon was the next to go, losing a rear-end gear and losing 26 laps before he could return and limp to a 34th-place finish. Of the others in the championship chase, reigning series titlist Matt Kenseth joined Busch in the broken-engine department to finish 41st and Elliott Sadler tangled with Joe Nemechek to place 36th. Having run strong all afternoon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. tried to move into position too soon and ended with his hood scrunched on his roof after a run-in with third-place finisher Carl Edwards. Instead of climbing in the standings, Earnhardt backed into 33rd place and lost two positions with time to clinch the crown running thin. In addition to Johnson and Martin, title contender Stewart also stayed out of trouble, finishing ninth with what he insisted was an assist from Scott Lathram, his friend aboard the fateful Hendrick plane. “I was wrecking all over the place out there and didn’t hit anything,” said Stewart, who is sixth in the standings entering Phoenix, 145 points in arrears to Busch. “I knew (Scott) was looking out for me.” Martin, who questioned the need for the final caution caused by a stalled Kevin Harvick on pit road that ultimately cost him the victory, was gracious in congratulating Johnson and the Hendrick organization. “It (finishing second) was nobody’s fault but (that) caution flag,” said Martin, a four-time championship runner-up who more than most understood the emotional impact of Johnson’s victory. “If I find out that (last) caution was for the show, I’ll choke. We (just) got beat.” Beat by a team, said a still grieving but poised Johnson, that many thought wouldn’t be in a frame of heart or mind to compete at Atlanta. “I don’t know if you can understand the love and friendship and emotion that goes on at (Hendrick Motorsports), but when we lost a bunch of our leaders there, the people that those leaders hired stepped in and got us here,” said Johnson. “I don’t mean victory lane. I mean just got us to the racetrack. And that’s a testimony to (Rick) Hendrick. “With three races to go, nobody can play defense, everyone is going to have to be on offense,” he added. “It’s a whole new world for us.”
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