Martin wins Vegas Nationwide race

The 49-year-old admitted that his win did not come in the way he would have probably wanted.

Martin, who had not won for the past three years, led a race-high 81 laps in the No.5 Hendrick-operated JR Motorsports entry, and was fighting for the lead when he triggered the last of an event-record 13 cautions with only six laps remaining.

The sister JR Motorsports car of Brad Kaselowski was leading after staying out when the leaders pitted on the previous caution, and Carl Edwards was on his inside trying to complete a pass on the front-straight when Martin tapped the rear of the No. 60 Ford Fusion.

Edwards lost control, spun and collected Kaselowski, putting both into the wall, while Martin inherited the lead, which he kept under attack from the other Roush Fenway Ford of Greg Biffle in a green-white-chequered finish.

"I've got to apologise before we do any celebration, to Carl Edwards and Brad Kaselowski," Martin said. "I ran into the back of Carl and he lost control. I hate it. And I say I hate really because we had a one-two finish for JR Motorsports.

"I want to thank the whole team for giving me this opportunity, but it can happen. I'm sure I didn't intend for it to turn out like that. I couldn't stop it once it got started."

Before the penultimate caution came out, Martin was in the lead and Greg Biffle was reeling him in, but in the last two laps of racing there was nothing Biffle could do to snatch victory away from his former teammate.

"The only thing I could do was hold it to the floor and that's what I did for that last lap and a half," Biffle said. "Their car was just so much faster than ours, I don't know why. We needed to be a little bit faster to run with those guys.

"All the Toyotas were wrecked out, they were the fastest cars. We were a little better than them in the long run."

In the early part of the race it looked as though it was going to be another day of Toyota domination, but the fastest Camrys all ended up in the wall.

First was polesitter Brian Vickers, who fell victim to an apparent tyre problem, which caused him to smash the right side of his Braun Racing Toyota against the concrete at Turn 2.

Then Kyle Busch, who was running second at half-distance after leading a number of laps, had a similar problem when his right front tyre blew up, sending him into the wall at Turn 3. He blamed the tyre failures on a wrong decision by officials.

"It's the wrong tyre for here, it's too hard," Busch said. "They're trying to slow us down and everybody's wrecking. You even have experienced guys that are wrecking."

On lap 139, another two Toyotas took each other off when David Reutimann made contact with Tony Stewart, getting him loose and causing both to end up against the same Turn 3 SAFER-barrier.

Stewart was recovering after losing the lead in the pits on a previous caution, and had once again looked like the car to beat. He had been in the lead for 61 laps, and had already moved up following early trouble with the left front brake-fan coming loose.

Jeff Burton was also among the quick runners who watched the end of the race on TV. He led the first lap of the race, then went a lap down following an unscheduled stop under green, fought his way back onto the lead lap and sadly retired from second place due to an engine-related problem.

Behind Biffle, Clint Bowyer finished third ahead of Kevin Harvick with David Stremme rounding up the top five in his best race thus far for Rusty Wallace's team.

Dario Franchitti made the most of a well-judged strategy call to take his first top ten in the Nationwide Series.

The Scott followed Kaselowski on the penultimate caution, staying on the track while the leaders pitted. He had been running just outside the top ten and was able to hold on to sixth by the chequered flag, keeping contact with some of the fastest cars of the day.

"We were a little tight to start with but we freed it off and once it got a little bit better then we took a gamble on the strategy," said Franchitti, who now leads the Raybestos rookie standings. "I guess if you're going to gamble, Vegas is the place to do it so we came in and had to start making fuel mileage. That worked out for us."

His fellow rookie Patrick Carpentier, who filled in for an ill Kasey Kahne at the last minute, also had a strong race. The Vegas resident qualified the car without any practice and took his first top ten finish on an oval, crossing the finish line in eighth place.

Despite their bad afternoons, Stewart and Kyle Busch hold on to the top two spots in the Nationwide Series points. Harvick though, is now tied in second place with Busch with Edwards down to fourth.

Pos  Driver                Car        Laps
 1.  Mark Martin           Chevrolet  202
 2.  Greg Biffle           Ford       202
 3.  Clint Bowyer          Chevrolet  202
 4.  Kevin Harvick         Chevrolet  202
 5.  David Stremme         Chevrolet  202
 6.  Dario Franchitti      Dodge      202
 7.  Mike Wallace          Toyota     202
 8.  Patrick Carpentier    Dodge      202
 9.  Brad Coleman          Ford       202
10.  David Ragan           Ford       202
11.  Stanton Barrett       Chevrolet  202
12.  Bobby Hamilton Jr     Ford       202
13.  Kenny Wallace         Dodge      202
14.  Carl Edwards          Ford       202
15.  Kelly Bires           Ford       201
16.  Johnny Sauter         Chevrolet  201
17.  Kevin Lepage          Ford       201
18.  Jason Keller          Chevrolet  200
19.  Robert Richardson II  Chevrolet  198
20.  John Borneman III     Ford       198
21.  Brett Rowe            Chevrolet  197
22.  Eric McClure          Chevrolet  197
23.  Brad Keselowski       Chevrolet  195
24.  Jeff Burton           Chevrolet  157
25.  David Reutimann       Toyota     152
26.  Mike Bliss            Dodge      141
27.  Tony Stewart          Toyota     137
28.  Marcos Ambrose        Ford       131
29.  DJ Kennington         Dodge      122
30.  Steve Wallace         Chevrolet  115
31.  Kyle Busch            Toyota     102
32.  Derrike Cope          Chevrolet  90
33.  Kertus Davis          Chevrolet  81
34.  Bobby Labonte         Chevrolet  72
35.  Brad Baker            Ford       65
36.  Brian Vickers         Toyota     61
37.  Todd Bodine           Chevrolet  45
38.  Larry Gunselman       Chevrolet  45
39.  Jason Leffler         Toyota     42
40.  Morgan Shepherd       Dodge      37
41.  Dwayne Leik           Chevrolet  36
42.  Brian Keselowski      Chevrolet  30
43.  Kyle Krisiloff        Dodge      9