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| Ford Race Notes: Bristol
08-24-2006 | TruckSeries.com Report
Mark Martin took the checkered flag for the fifth time in his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career with tonight's victory. Martin won the pole and went to victory lane in his first truck series start at Bristol Motor Speedway, and now has wins at the half-mile track in all three of NASCAR's major touring series. In eight races this season, Martin has driven to victory lane a series-high four times, and extended Roush Racing's all-time series win mark to 41. Ford has now won 76 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races all time, and six in 2006. Ford's win tonight is its third truck series victory at BMS (Ruttman, Edwards). The last Ford truck series triumph at BMS occurred when Carl Edwards won this event in 2004. Mark Martin No. 6 Scotts Ford F-150 (Finished 1st) Did you ever think that lap 30 was too early to make your only pit stop? "I did, but at lap 100 I knew it wasn't because the tires were, I swear, we never raced anyway, it seemed like we were under caution every other lap. There at the end, I don't know how much faster new tires would have been. I guess it would have been faster, but that thing would have rolled. It was just so tough." "Mike Beam and all of these guys just gave me such a great truck today. I really want to thank them and Jack Roush and Scotts and Ford. This place hasn't always been real kind to me and today it was spectacular. Mike Beam had very good strategy and we had an incredible truck to drive and this was fun." How important was your spotter tonight? "Well, I have a great spotter with Bobby Hudson, but when you have Todd Bodine behind you, you're never safe. He's an incredible driver and he can pull a rabbit out of the hat in a heartbeat." Jack Roush, Owner-6-Scotts Ford F-150: "Well, Mark is the man. Any talk about Mark and retiring anytime soon is premature. He's healthy, and he's fast, and he's having a good time right now." Marcos Ambrose No. 20-Team Australia/Aussie Vineyards Ford F-150 (Finished 26th) Was it difficult to keep your bearing on the race track with the fast-paced action? "We knew we were at. We lost a couple of laps there and I don't know where we lost them, but we lost them, and that put us right back there and had to ride around and stay out of trouble." Terry Cook No. 10 Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Finished 21st) ERIK DARNELL No. 99 Roush Racing Ford F-150 (Finished 18th) David Ragan No. 50 Roush Racing Ford F-150 (Finished 15th) Was it difficult to keep your bearing on the race track with the fast-paced action? "I'm fortunate to have the experience that I've got at the age of 20. I got to run here a couple of years ago and I still wasn't prepared for what I fell into tonight. This is a definitely a wild race. You have to give it to every single one of those Cup guys that can run 500 laps here. It's an amazing place and it's one of my favorite race tracks, but it sure does help to be up in the front." Mark Martin Press Conference How difficult is it to save fuel and tires on this track? "Well, the truck enabled me to do that. I've been here a lot of times when we had to run as hard as you could and it still wasn't enough. When we pitted so early, there wasn't any need in getting in a big hurry to come through the pack because everyone in front of us had to pit yet. So, that's what I meant when we saved our tires. All we had to do was keep Johnny behind us because he was the first truck behind us on the same strategy. We were in a line kinda doing the same strategy and letting it play out, and then after everyone else that hadn't pitted made their pit stop, then it was time for us to try to sort it out. We just had one of those magical setups under that thing today. It was spectacular the whole time and it's just a lot of fun to race with Mike and all of those guys. They get so excited when we run good and that makes it so much fun. I want to thank Jack Roush for making that available to me. Such a great team, and I thought we had an incredible crowd here tonight, a big crowd and they were supportive of it. I'm sure we're going to see a lot more sparks yet this weekend. We're not done making sparks out there yet." You are the first to win in all three major NASCAR Series here at Bristol. "Well, that means I've done a lot of racing. You know, this race track used to be a race track that I used to love. It hasn't been that kind to me in the last five years and I hope that we didn't use our good luck up tonight. I hope we can come here Saturday night and have a great run as well. It's Jack Roush's fault I've won all three series here. I'd just like to say that; that's his fault. He's put me in fast race cars in every division and it has come at Jack Roush's hands. We've been doing this together for 19 years and it still feels good to be doing it together." Jack Roush Press Conference
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