NASCAR Cup

Texas: Mark Martin preview

MARTIN SECOND IN THE POINTS HEADING INTO TEXAS Martin moves into Texas second in the Nextel Cup point standing and coming off a 13th-place finish at Martinsville. Having survived back-to-back short track races at Bristol and Martinsville, Martin ...

Edited: Apr 6, 2006, 2:52 AM

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MARTIN SECOND IN THE POINTS HEADING INTO TEXAS

Martin moves into Texas second in the Nextel Cup point standing and coming off a 13th-place finish at Martinsville. Having survived back-to-back short track races at Bristol and Martinsville, Martin will look to settle back in at Texas, where his style of driving is best suited.

Chassis Number: (No. RK-314) The team will run RK-314 this weekend at Texas. RK-314 finished second in its last run at Atlanta three weeks ago.It finished second at Texas last fall.

Worthy Note: Martin is currently second in Nextel Cup point standings, his highest ranking since 2002.

IN THE POINTS

Martin's hard-fought finish at Martinsville moved him up two places to second in the Nextel Cup point standings, his highest mark since finishing second in 2002.

MARTIN AT TEXAS

Martin has posted five top-10 finishes in 10 starts at Texas. In addition he has one victory and four top fives. Martin finished 38th at the inaugural race at Texas in 1997 after mechanical issues, but returned the next year to post a victory there. He won the inaugural Busch race there in 1997. He finished second there last fall and 20th a year ago after brushing against the wall late with a loose race car.

MR CONSISTENT

Martin has now finished inside the top 15 in 10 consecutive races, dating back to Atlanta last fall. This season he has climbed from 11th to second in the points. Martin has finished in the top 10 in four of the six races this season.

AAA AND MARK MARTIN

Martin is sporting a different look and sponsor this season. As North America's largest motoring and leisure travel organization, AAA boasts more than 48 million members.

ENCORE SALUTE IN '06

Martin had planned 2005 as his final in NASCAR's Nextel Cup Series, but when called into action by Jack Roush opted to return for one more go around. Martin's fourth-place finish in the points in '05 proved he is still one of the fastest stars in NASCAR and he plans on using 2006 as an encore performance of his highly popular "Salute To You" Tour, where he will continue to take the time to thank each and everyone that he feels played a role in his success, including the team members, the fans, NASCAR and the media.

QUOTING MARK AND PAT --ON TEXAS

"Texas is a great race track. It's the type of place that suits my driving style. I've always done pretty well on the 1.5-mile tracks and Texas has been pretty good for us in that mix. We won the second race there and we've been pretty good there ever since. Last fall we competed for the win late in the race and we are really looking forward to going back there and seeing what we can do this weekend.

"Pat (Tryson) and the team continue to do a great job with the cars and I'm really impressed how nobody gave up last Sunday and we were able to get a solid finish out of what could have been a rough day at Martinsville. We've survived the short tracks and now we get a chance to go back to an intermediate track - which is our strong point - and hopefully do what we do best."

PAT TRYSON

"We are very excited about going back to a bigger track, and hopefully we'll be able to take up where we left off at Atlanta. We are running the same car that we used to finish second at Atlanta, so if we can just tweak that and put together a solid effort on pit road then we should really be in good shape this weekend at Texas, where I know Mark really loves the racing."

-rr

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