NASCAR Cup

Martin ready for Daytona Shootout

Michael Waltrip Racing press release

Edited: Jun 1, 2018, 1:37 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

CORNELIUS, N.C. — Mark Martin has a special seat reserved for Saturday night’s 34th-annual Budweiser Shootout at Daytona that kicks off the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. The 1999 race winner will sit atop Michael Waltrip’s pit box. Waltrip will drive the No. 55 Aaron’s Dream Machine with plans to give Toyota its first victory in the 75-lap, non-points race. Martin, who is sharing the No. 55 with Waltrip in 2012, has work of his own to do this weekend as his team prepares for single-car qualifying at 1 p.m. on Sunday (Fox) for the Feb. 26 Daytona 500.

Mark Martin, Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota

Photo by: Greg Aleck

MARTIN ON BUD SHOOTOUT: “I’m going to put on my Aaron’s shirt, a radio headset and climb right up there on the pit box with (crew chief) Rodney (Childers) and watch Michael race. I’ll be rooting him on, but who knows, maybe I’ll get on the radio with him. There’s a lot we can learn from Saturday night’s race that we can apply to the Thursday qualifying races and the Daytona 500. Every little bit you learn helps.”

SINGLE-CAR QUALIFYING: “We’ll get about four hours of practice on Saturday to work on what we’ll have for Sunday. There’s not much you can do as a driver when you are out there on qualifying runs by yourself. It’s all car at that point. You want to do well Sunday, but you can’t lose sight of the bigger picture and that is getting your car ready to run in the pack when they drop the green flag for the Duels and the Daytona 500.”

NOTES

· Mark Martin will race the No. 55 in 24 races plus the All Star race in 2012. Waltrip will drive the No. 55 in the Shootout plus six races including all the remaining restrictor plate events. MWR will fill the remaining races with a driver to be named later.

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

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Front Row Motorsports names Tryson as crew chief

Next article Series opens 2012 season with Daytona Shootout

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

WEC Barcelona: Genesis secures maiden series pole from Toyota

WEC

WEC WEC

Barcelona

12 min

WEC Barcelona: Genesis secures maiden series pole from Toyota

Five-time IndyCar champion, first-time Indy NXT driver: Alex Palou tops IMS road course test

Indy NXT

IndL Indy NXT 1 h

Five-time IndyCar champion, first-time Indy NXT driver: Alex Palou tops IMS road course test

Gabriel Bortoleto on Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar's F1 success: 'Let's see where we are in 20 years'

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

2 h

Gabriel Bortoleto on Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar's F1 success: 'Let's see where we are in 20 years'

Nicki Thiim's cheeky F1 jab: "Max Verstappen just wants to drive a proper race car!"

GT World Challenge Europe Endurance

WCEE GT World Challenge Europe Endurance 2 h

Nicki Thiim's cheeky F1 jab: "Max Verstappen just wants to drive a proper race car!"

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