MARTIN RETURNS TO THE TRACK AT RICHMOND
After two weekends away from the track, Mark Martin returns as the driver of the No. 01 U.S. Army Chevrolet in this weekend's Chevy Rock & Roll 400 Nextel Cup race at Richmond International Raceway.
RICHMOND DEEP IN HISTORY FOR Mark Martin
This will be Mark Martin's 44th start at Richmond, dating back to Sept. 13, 1981 when he earned his second career Cup pole in only his fourth career start. Mark Martin rolled to a seventh-place finish, the first of his 23 career top-10 results at Richmond and the first of his Cup career. He has finished in the top 10 in six of his last 11 at RIR. He finished fifth there last fall and 17th in the spring.
ON THE POLE
Mark Martin has claimed three poles at Richmond -- September 1981, September 1996 and May 2001.
Mark Martin GETS BACK IN THE CAR OF TOMORROW
This will be Mark Martin's fifth race in the COT and his second at Richmond. It will be the first time that Mark Martin has raced the COT on the same track twice. Mark Martin started ninth and finished 17th at Richmond in the COT in May. In the four previous COT races, Mark Martin has an average start of 21.75 and an average finish of 12.5. After Richmond, Mark Martin is scheduled to take part in one more COT race this season -- at Dover. NASCAR will run the COT in all 36 races next season.
QUOTING MARK
"We have a long history at Richmond, going all the way back to the early '80's when I first broke into Cup racing. I sat on the pole there the first time we went in 1981. We were able to actually get a top-10 there the first time as well. It has always been a track that was pretty fun to race on and we've had some great battles and quite a bit of success there over the years. I was able to win there in 1990, but I think a lot of people will remember that for the now famous 46 point penalty that we got after the race. That really played an important role in the championship that season. We've also had some really memorable runs there to race our way into the Chase in the last couple of seasons. The second Richmond race has kind of taken on a new significance in the last couple of years.
"This year it sure will be nice to go there without all of that pressure built up on getting into the Chase. We'll be able to just relax and run our race, while the nerves will be high for a lof of the other guys in the field. I've been off for a couple of weeks and we didn't get a whole lot of racing in at Michigan, so I'm really looking forward to getting back out on the track with Ryan (Pemberton) and this No. 01 U.S. Army race them this weekend."
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