Mark Martin waves to the crowd after posting his 5th win of the season. (Glenn Smith/High Sierra Photo)

Mark Martin overcame early overheating woes then held off two dozen rivals Saturday to become the inaugural NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series winner at Talladega Superspeedway.

Martin, who started from the Budweiser Pole, led the first five laps of the John Deere 250 but went a lap down after a plastic tear-off covered the grille of his Scotts Ford sending the truck to pit road on lap 16.

The race's first of seven cautions at lap 24, however, allowed Martin to regain his lost serial and begin a methodical march through the field.

Martin took the lead for the fourth and final time on the 91st of 94 laps, powering past defending NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Ted Musgrave at the head of the 2.66-mile track's backstretch. Musgrave had inherited the point at lap 86 after Germain Racing partner Todd Bodine was black-flagged for going below the out-of-bounds line in Turn 1 as he passed Martin's Ford.

Martin was home free when a multiple truck accident in Turn 3 brought out the yellow flag midway through the final lap.

Race winner Mark Martin leads the field. (Glenn Smith/High Sierra Photo)

The victory was the 47-year-old driver's fifth of the season and sixth in the series. Martin now has swept all three of NASCAR's national touring series at four different tracks - adding Talladega to a list that previously included Daytona, California and Bristol.

Martin's 138.207 mph average speed was more than 40 mph slower than the record lap of 182.320 he turned in winning the pole. Before caution waved at lap 24 for debris on the racetrack, the race average had exceeded 190 mph.

Martin, who won $71,650, saw Bodine as his chief rival as the laps wound down and was going to do everything possible to protect the bottom groove of the freshly repaved track.

"Todd got a big run and I wasn't going to give him the inside," said the winner. "He wasn't going to get inside me at the end of the race."

Mike Skinner, who also went a lap down early in the race after pitting under green to replace a right-side window panel, finished second. Skinner triggered the final lap melee when his Toyota Tundra Toyota hoisted Mike Wallace's GEICO Chevrolet out of second place and into the Turn 3 safety barrier.

"I feel that it was my fault," said Skinner of the accident. "Mike Wallace is a friend of mine. He wigged and we wagged."

Musgrave finished third in the Team ASE Toyota trailed by Bodine, who, amazingly, went from 27th to fourth after serving his penalty. The latter's finish was not without controversy as Bodine made contact with Derrike Cope a split second after the Skinner-Wallace incident leaving the Daytona 500 winner's Key Motorsports Chevrolet demolished. Cope was uninjured as was Wallace.

Champ Car World Series star A.J. Allmendinger was fifth in just his second NASCAR appearance and led the race in the process. David Reutimann, David Ragan, Chad Chaffin, Johnny Benson and Ron Hornaday Jr. completed the top 10 finishers among 25 drivers running all 94 laps comprising the 250.04-mile distance.

Johnny Benson, who led 32 laps, dropped a number of positions in the last-lap skirmish after closing Bodine's championship lead to 18 points when racing resumed with four laps remaining. Bodine, however, extended a 91 point margin to 113 in the final accounting as just five races remain on the 2005 schedule.

There were 12 lead changes among six drivers with caution consuming 23 laps. Although the lap 94 accident eliminated two drivers, Wallace and Cope, the inaugural Talladega event was remarkably free of major incident.

"It was a really, really great race; a clean race," said winner Martin. "The drivers did a spectacular job."

Next event, after a one week layoff, is the Oct. 21 Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway.