NASCAR Cup
Marlin wins Open, Schrader transfers
Sterling Marlin won tonight's NEXTEL Open race and will transfer into the NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge Event. It is Marlin's fourth "Open" career victory. "It was pretty wild," said Marlin. "I knew if it stayed green I had it. They started ...
Published: May 23, 2004, 5:08 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Sterling Marlin won tonight's NEXTEL Open race and will transfer into the NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge Event. It is Marlin's fourth "Open" career victory.
"It was pretty wild," said Marlin. "I knew if it stayed green I had it. They started racing hard (Jamie McMurray and Jeremy Mayfield) and I just snuck on by.
Sterling Marlin.
Photo by Michael Kim / LAT Photographic.
"Hopefully we can put that little Coors Light Dodge in victory lane and win a million dollars."
The NEXTEL Open started off with a bang. Literally. The field had not even gone 100 yards on the first lap, when the No. 41 Dodge of Casey Mears failed to get up to speed due to transmission issues. That set off a chain reaction behind Mears. The miscalculation by Mears proved costly.
"The transmission blew up," explained Mears. "I went from second to third, got to third for a split second and then it just blew apart. As soon as the car stopped I couldn't even get out of gear. It was all jammed together. I feel bad for everybody. We had a mechanical failure and it took out half the field."
All in all 11 cars were involved in the melee. NASCAR red-flagged the event, but allowed teams to work on their wrecked race cars under those conditions -- something NASCAR does not allow during a normal points event.
"I am not even sure I got past the start finish line," said Rudd. "It's disappointing."
The other drivers involved in the incident were Scott Riggs, Kerry Earnhardt, Brendan Gaughan, Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Jeremy Mayfield, Jeff Burton, Carl Long, Morgan Shepard, Kyle Petty and Jimmy Spencer.
"That was the shortest race I have ever been in," said Spencer. "I don't think we even went a thousand feet."
After twenty minutes under red flag for repairs, NASCAR restarted the event. The Open was scheduled to be broken into two segments, the first consisting of 20 laps which the No. 42 Dodge of Jamie McMurray dominated.
A yellow flag between segments one and two gave teams the option to pit before the second, 10-lap, race to the green. Sterling Marlin beat McMurray out of the pits to lead the field to the restart on the final ten.
Marlin, in the No. 40 Dodge, grabbed an impressive half-second lead over the second place car of McMurray, but a lap five single-car wreck by the No. 72 of Kirk Shelmerdine bunched the racers back together.
Caution laps are not counted during The NEXTEL Open, so the race was restarted with five laps left to be completed. McMurray quickly moved around Marlin and took the lead. The No. 19 Dodge of Jeremy Mayfield also managed to outmaneuver Marlin and grab second.
Mayfield breathed down the bumper of McMurray with two laps to go, and finally got impatient as the two slammed sheet metal door-to-door on the white flag lap. During the confrontation between McMurray and Mayfield, Marlin got around both cars and garnered the win.
"The first run was good, but we got really loose in the end," commented McMurray.
Jeremy Mayfield. Jamie McMurray, Jeff Green and Scott Wimmer rounded out the top five.
Earnhardt, who led the fan vote to transfer into the All-Star challenge, was ruled ineligible to transfer to the All-Star race. Event rules state that the driver to make the show from the fan vote must be on the lead lap to meet the criteria to make the race.
Earnhardt had suffered considerable damage to the No. 33 Chevy and finally blew the engine with five laps left in the event.
Ken Schrader had the next-highest fan vote and transfers into the event.
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article The Nextel Open race results
Next article The Nextel All-Star race results
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Jamie McMurray
Clint Bowyer and Jamie McMurray to make surprise NASCAR return with Ram
NASCAR Truck
NASCAR Truck
Texas
Clint Bowyer and Jamie McMurray to make surprise NASCAR return with Ram
Watch SVG’s wild Las Vegas save join NASCAR’s greatest car-control moments
NASCAR Cup
NASCAR Cup
Las Vegas
Watch SVG’s wild Las Vegas save join NASCAR’s greatest car-control moments
2010 Daytona 500 winner lists $12million 33-acre Mooresville estate for sale
NASCAR Cup
NASCAR Cup
Daytona II
2010 Daytona 500 winner lists $12million 33-acre Mooresville estate for sale
Latest news
The closest finish in MotoGP history: Toni Elias over Valentino Rossi 20 years ago
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Portuguese GP
1 h
The closest finish in MotoGP history: Toni Elias over Valentino Rossi 20 years ago
When will Mercedes become F1 world champions in 2026?
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
2 h
When will Mercedes become F1 world champions in 2026?
Jesse Love barely holds off Sam Mayer for NASCAR O'Reilly win at Phoenix
NASCAR O'Reilly
NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly
Phoenix II
8 h
Jesse Love barely holds off Sam Mayer for NASCAR O'Reilly win at Phoenix
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe