Mark Martin wins in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Mark Martin took Dale Earnhardt Jr. to victory lane by winning Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — and immediately apologized for an accident he started in the closing laps. Martin, the winningest driver in NASCAR’s second-level series, raced to the 48th victory of his career. Greg Biffle of Vancouver, Wash., finished second. Derrike Cope of Spanaway was 32nd of 43.
Martin drove a car owned by Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports. But the victory came at the expense of Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski, who races full time for Earnhardt. Defending series champion Edwards finished 14th. Keselowski was 23rd. Martin was sixth after a final round of pit stops when the Sam’s Town 300 restarted with 10 laps to go. With four fresh tires on his Chevrolet, he sliced his way toward the front while chasing cars that had taken two tires. Edwards and Keselowski were racing side by side when Martin closed in on Edwards’ bumper. Contact sent Edwards’ car wiggling across the track, and he slid directly into Keselowski to wreck both cars. Martin slipped past into the lead and stayed ahead in a two-lap shootout to the finish. “I’ve got to apologize before we do anything else,” Martin said as soon as he climbed from his car. “I ran into the back of Carl. I hate it. I just hate it, really, because we could have had a one-two finish with JR Motorsports. I hate that it happened, but I sure didn’t intend for it to happen.”
The track hosts the NASCAR UAW-Dodge 400 Sprint Cup Series race today.
