Dickies 500 - Mark Martin Notes

MARK MARTIN FAST FACTS
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
(1.5 - MILE) - 334 LAPS
RACE: 34, 8 OF 10 IN CHASE
Dickies 500, Nov. 6, 2005

MARTIN, NO. 6 READY TO ROLL INTO TEXAS
Mark Martin rebounded last weekend in Atlanta with his fourth top-five run of the "Chase." The team will attempt to tackle yet another 1.5-mile oval when they travel to Texas Motor Speedway for the track's first fall Cup event.

Chassis Number: (RK-314) - The team will run RK-314 this weekend at Texas. RK-314 finished fifth in its last outing at Charlotte in October.

AT TEXAS
Starts: 9
Wins: 1
Top 5's: 3
Top 10's: 4
Poles: -
Highest finish: 1st (4-98)
First time: 4/6/97 (38)
Last time: 4/17/05 (20)

Worthy Note: Martin at Texas in '98, in only the second Cup event there.

IN THE POINTS
Martin moved up to sixth in the point standings, trimming 27 points off point leader Tony Stewart's lead. Martin is currently 143 points outside of first place and only 36 points outside of fourth with only three races remaining in the season.

BREAKING DOWN THE CHASE
Martin has started a total of 33 races at the remaining three tracks that will make up the Chase for the Nextel Cup. He has posted two wins, 14 top-five and 20 top-10 finishes at those tracks. Martin has a 12.53 average finish at Chase tracks and he has led a total of 615 laps, including 116 at Texas.

MARTIN AT TEXAS
Martin has posted four top-10 finishes in nine starts at Texas. In addition he has one victory and three 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 20th there in the spring after brushing against the wall late with a loose race car.

MARTIN RUNS TO RECORD FIFTH IROC CHAMPIONSHIP
Martin locked up his record fifth Internationa Race of Champions title last Saturday at Atlanta with a second-place finish. Martin now boasts IROC Championships in 1994, ’96, ’97, ’98 and 2005. In 11 seasons of IROC racing, Martin has five Championships and four runner-up finishes.

QUOTING MARK AND PAT …ON TEXAS
MARK MARTIN
"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. Hopefully we can go back there and get us another win this weekend. We had a pretty good car there in the fall, but had some problems late. We had a good test there two weeks ago, so we'll be looking to get off to a fast start and hopefully pick us up another win.

"We had a great run in Atlanta last week and we are going to keep fighting. That's all we can really do is show up and try to win these races. Pat (Tryson) and the team continue to give me great race cars. If I could keep driving cars like we had last weekend in Atlanta, I'd drive until I was 60-years old. Hopefully we can be competitive and compete to win the next three races and see what happens from there. At any rate this is the best team I've worked with and I'm really proud of them."

PAT TRYSON
"We really like these 1.5-mile tracks and we've had a lot of success with them in the Chase.Texas should be another good place for us and we are looking forward to going back out there. We had a really good test there two weeks ago and we think that we should have one of the cars to beat this weekend."

MARK MARTIN FAST FACTS – TEXAS