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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: Déjà Vu All Over Again
There was something familiar about Mark Martin’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory in the Sylvania 500 on Sunday...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted September 21, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Juan Montoya believes Mark Martin is the man to beat in the championship Chase. “I think he's the most dangerous guy..." said Montoya after finishing third at New Hampshire. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
There was something familiar about Mark Martin’s victory in the Sylvania 500 on Sunday, and it wasn’t just the fact that it was Martin’s fifth victory of the season, a total he’s only eclipsed once before, in 1998.

No, it wasn’t that Martin won again.

It was how Martin won again.

Three times in the final 20 laps, Martin had to survive late-race restarts, a nerve-wracking process with NASCAR’s new double-wide restart format.

Martin prevailed each time, because he chose the outside lane and was able to keep the second-place car pinned to the bottom of the track on each restart. Juan Pablo Montoya, the final victim, thought for sure he was going to win the race, only to have Martin keep him from being able to gain any momentum by crowding him to the bottom.

At first, Montoya was angry, but afterwards he admitted he’d have done exactly the same thing in Martin’s place.

So how did Martin figure this out?

Because Kyle Busch did exactly the same thing to him four weeks ago at Bristol. In that race, Martin’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet clearly was faster than Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, but Busch survived four restarts in the final 60 laps by keeping Martin locked down on the bottom each time, which is exactly what Martin did to win at New Hampshire International Speedway on Sunday.

Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks, after all.

And you better believe the rest of the field knows this now, too.

“These cars, they're built on momentum now because they don't turn in the center (of the corner),” Busch said after Bristol. “When you get down into the corner, you can't turn the thing, you got to slow down, then you got to accelerate more. The outside, they're still going. They're keeping it going. They're keeping it wound up. They just get down the next straightaway faster.”

For his part, Montoya believes Martin is the man to beat in the championship race. “I think he's the most dangerous guy,” Montoya said after finishing third behind Martin and Denny Hamlin at NHMS. “He's the guy with the most experience here. He hasn't won a championship, and he wants one pretty bad. I mean, I know the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) is going to be there every week and everything, same thing as always, but if somebody wants it really bad, it's that 5 guy.”


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