With 10 laps remaining in the John Deere 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Mark Martin had a comfortable lead and appeared to be on his way to his record-tying third consecutive NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory. But an ill-timed pack of traffic and a hard charging Todd Bodine put the brakes on Martin's victory charge.

That pack of traffic split the leaders on lap 126 - just four laps remaining in the scheduled distance - gave Bodine the opening he needed. Bodine split the middle between the two lapped trucks, while Martin dipped to the inside.

Both of the leaders' trucks pitched sideways, with contact made between all four drivers as they raced down the backstretch. Bodine did a herculean job to keep his truck under control, while Martin escaped with some damage to the right side. A third driver involved, Timothy Peters, cut down a left rear tire after contact from Bodine and that eventually sent him around and into the wall to set up the third green-white-checkered overtime finish in three series races.

On the restart, Martin dipped to the inside, but that was exactly what Bodine needed to keep him at bay.

Mark Martin (6) and Todd Bodine battle for the win. (Nate Mecha/HSP)

"If Mark had gone high, there is no way I could have held him off," Bodine said in victory lane. "He would have gotten me way too loose and sucked me around. When I saw him go low I knew that was my chance. We were able to keep him pinched down and keep our truck wound up. That's what we needed and it made all the difference."

While Martin was disappointed his win streak came to a halt at two, he was pleased with his team's performance and enjoyed his first Truck Series race at Atlanta.

"That was a lot of fun," Martin said. "What got us there was the lapped trucks. We came up on a three-wide pack of trucks and they were all in their own race. That's what chopped down that lead, and Todd saw an opening and he went for it. It was a great race, these Truck Series drivers do a heck of a job."

While Bodine and Martin were engaged in their own battle, just behind them lurked Johnny Benson looking for any opportunity to sneak past and collect his first career Truck Series victory.

"For a minute I thought we were in the cat bird's seat," Benson said. "All I needed was for those two to get together a little bit and we could've snuck through and won it going away. There was one time I could have stuck it in there three wide, but I got the run a little too late and would have made it three wide going into three and we all would've crashed. That wouldn't have been any good. I thought I could've gotten Mark for second at the end, but we just missed it."

A pileup in turn four on the last lap threw everyone for a loop, and held up the unofficial results while NASCAR officials reviewed video and scoring data.

Aric Almirola got loose exiting the final corner and collected Jack Sprague, Brendan Gaughan, Bobby Hamilton, Jr., and Steve Park. Sprague and Gaughan both went hard into the outside wall head on, demolishing their trucks, while Hamilton, Jr. slid up into Park's path at the last moment, leaving Park no where to go and doing major damage to both vehicles.

Ted Musgrave continued his strong start to the season with a fourth-place finish, while David Reutimann finished fifth. Jon Wood had a strong run to finish sixth, with Mike Bliss unofficially in seventh. Erik Darnell was the highest finishing Raybestos Rookie of the Year contender in eighth, while Matt Crafton picked up his first top ten of the season in ninth. Rick Crawford finished a Truck Race at Atlanta for the first time in four tries and rounded out the top-10.

Bobby Hamilton announced to the racing community he will be taking an extended leave of abscence from driving duties to receive treatment for a cancerous tumor in his neck finished 12th, his best finish of an abbreviated 2006 season. Hamilton will start treatments at Vanderbilt University Medical Center on Monday, and expects to be out of the truck at least through the final race of the 2006 season. He may return in time for Homestead, but preliminary plans have him returning in time for the 2007 season opener at Daytona. Hamilton, Jr. will replace his father as driver of the No. 18 for the remainder of the season.

Outside front row starter Mike Skinner was involved in an early race accident with Scott Lagasse, Jr. and Joey Miller that heavily damaged the nose of his ride. With the oil lines all knocked off, Skinner drove down the front stretch in a flaming fireball before sliding off into the grass.

Skinner and Miller were 35th and 36th respectively.

Martin and Bodine were the only two leaders of the night, and they swapped the lead 12 times among themselves. Bodine's winning average speed was 133.459 miles per hour. There were four cautions which slowed the pace for 23 laps. The margin of victory was 0.354 seconds.

After two weeks off, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will return to action on Saturday April 2 at Martinsville Speedway for the Kroger 250.

TruckSeries.com will have all the news and notes leading up to round four of the 2006 season, and will have exclusive TrackSideLive! coverage starting Friday April 1.