Martin triumphs at Phoenix
AVONDALE, Ariz.
All times Eastern
11:41 p.m.
Mark Martin passes Ryan Newman easily on the outside at the restart. His long losing streak ends at 97 races.
Tony Stewart finishes second and Kurt Busch is third. Jimmie Johnson finishes fourth, falling short on his attempt to win four straight at Phoenix.
11:39 p.m.
Mark Martin will have to earn it now. Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashes with 11 to go after being lapped by Martin.
The leaders pit and Martin barely gets out first by inches over Kyle Busch, but the No. 18 was too fast exiting and Busch will have to serve a pass-through penalty.
Ryan Newman does not pit, so he will lead at the restart with six laps to go. Stewart, Newman's teammate, is third.
11:29 p.m.
Mark Martin is increasing his lead over Tony Stewart. Martin leads by 2.7 seconds with 44 laps to go. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is dropping like a rock. He's fallen to eighth.
Martin now leads by 3.4 seconds with 37 laps remaining. If he wins, it will be the fifth consecutive victory at Phoenix for Hendrick Motorsports.
It will take a mistake or a mechanical failure for Martin to lose it now. He's up almost four seconds with 33 laps left.
11:15 p.m.
Mark Martin passes Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the lead with 57 laps remaining. Looks like the old man may get it done tonight.
Tony Stewart passes Earnhardt for second with 54 laps remaining. Can he catch Martin?
11:12 p.m.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. pits under green with 86 laps to go. He led 52 laps before getting passed by Tony Stewart.
Jeff Gordon makes his green-flag stop with 78 laps remaining. The crew makes a big track bar adjustment. But they leave a lug nut off and Gordon has to pit again.
Big mistake. Gordon now is two laps down.
Mark Martin gets outside of Stewart and they battle for the lead for a lap before Martin pulls in front with 73 laps to go, but both drivers still must pit.
Stewart comes to pit road one lap later. Martin pits one lap after Stewart.
Jimmie Johnson pits with 70 laps left. Juan Pablo Montoya and Brian Vickers were too fast entering the pits and have to do a pass-through penalty.
Earnhardt is back in front after all the green-flag stops. Martin is second, three seconds back, but he's gaining on Earnhardt with 63 laps to go.
10:59 p.m.
Tony Stewart catches Dale Earnhardt Jr. and goes under him to take the lead with 92 laps to go, the first green-flag pass for the lead all race.
Mark Martin also goes by Earnhardt for second. Earnhardt needs a caution.
AP Photo/Jason BabyakThe view from the cheap seats on Rattlesnake Hill simply can't be beat.10:55 p.m.
Tony Stewart passed Kyle Busch for second on Lap 200, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a 4.4-second lead. Martin moved ahead of Kyle Busch for third one lap later.
Stewart is reeling in Earnhardt. He's only 2.4 seconds back at Lap 212. Stewart's tires are 10 laps fresher than Earnhardt's.
Stewart keeps closing. He's only 1.4 seconds back now. Earnhart's tires are giving out.
10:37 p.m.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has managed to stay in front out in clean air. He has a four-second lead on Kyle Busch at Lap 189.
Whoever gets in front can't be caught. We'll see if that rule holds up until the end.
10:35 p.m.
Caution 5 comes on Lap 166 when Robby Gordon and Michael Waltrip hit the wall in Turn 4. Waltrip got loose and hit Gordon, who was running the outside line next to him.
"I don't know what Michael was doing, but he ran us over," Gordon said. "I'm looking forward to having a new driver in the 55 [Waltrip's car] next season."
Drivers who restart in the top five at Lap 172 did not pit -- Dale Earnhardt Jr., Marcos Ambrose, Jeff Gordon, David Stremme and Bobby Labonte.
Kurt Busch, who did pit and was in front, restarts sixth. Greg Biffle is seventh and Kyle Busch is eighth. Jimmie Johnson restarts 22nd.
Kurt Busch just scraped the wall hard on Lap 175 and he may have a slight tire rub.
10:21 p.m.
Jeff Gordon has a tire rub, but he catches a break when A.J. Allmendinger hits the wall on Lap 151 to bring out the fourth caution.
Gordon and Jimmie Johnson pit while most of the leaders stay out. Gordon restarts 31st after his crew takes a hammer to bang out the left front fender.
Johnson restarts 25th. Kurt Busch continues to lead and Mark Martin is second.
10:11 p.m.
Caution 3 comes out when David Stremme spins into the grass off of Turn 2.
This one was good news for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was in danger of going a lap down.
Kurt Busch restarts first on Lap 143, but Martin Truex Jr. is second because his crew changed only two tires.
Jimmie Johnson's rear tire changer drops a lug nut to cause a slow stop. He drops from fourth to 13th on the restart.
10:05 p.m.
Ryan Newman is having radio problems. His crew can't hear him. He's using hand signals to convey what the car is doing. Newman is running 19th on Lap 121.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. just slid up the track and fell back to 34th, the last car on the lead lap. What else can go wrong?
The crew pulled a spring rubber on the last stop, but it hasn't helped.
Jimmie Johnson has moved up to fourth at Lap 132. As usual, the No. 48 Chevy is getting better as the track gets cooler.
9:56 p.m.
Caution No. 2 comes for debris on Lap 102.
Kurt Busch beats Mark Martin out of the pits to take the lead on the restart at Lap 109. Greg Biffle is third, Denny Hamlin fourth and Jimmie Johnson has moved up to fifth.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 28th. We still haven't had a single green-flag pass for the lead.
9:41 p.m.
Kevin Harvick goes a lap down on Lap 94. It looks like it will be 79 consecutive Cup races without a win for Harvick when this one ends.
The sun has gone below the grandstands, no doubt a big relief to the drivers.
We can only hope the cooler track will produce more exciting racing, because this is a giant snoozer so far.
9:33 p.m.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a lug nut problem on a front tire, so he had to go back in the pits. The No. 88 team moved the rear tire changer to the front for this race, and hired a new man from the former No. 8 team to change the rear tires.
On the first test, it didn't work out. This team is snakebit in the pits.
Mark Martin still leads on Lap 80. No passing up front at Phoenix. What gives?
9:26 p.m.
Guess who had problems again on pit road?
That would be Dale Earnhardt Jr., who had to return to the pits a second time during the caution because of a problem. He restarts 34th.
Mark Martin got out first and continues to lead on at Lap 60. It's unusual for someone to lead all these laps at Phoenix from the beginning of the race.
9:15 p.m.
Mark Martin has started lapping the field. Tony Raines and Joe Nemechek get lapped on Lap 30.
Tony Stewart is running aggressively early. He just became the middle car in a three-wide situation to pass Jeff Gordon for third on Lap 42.
Martin has led every lap of the first 50 circuits. At the 50-lap mark, Kurt Busch is second, Stewart is third, Gordon is fourth and David Reutimann is fifth.
Carl Edwards is 11th and Johnson is 13th.
The first caution comes out at Lap 54 when Sterling Marlin hits the wall after a right front tire goes down.
9:08 p.m.
Kyle Busch says his No. 18 Toyota is tight. He has dropped from second to sixth on Lap 25.
Jimmie Johnson, the man hoping to win his fourth consecutive Phoenix race, is 11th on Lap 27. But this race will change dramatically once the sun sets.
8:56 p.m.
Mark Martin leads at the start. This is a 312-lap race around the flat 1-mile oval. It's 500 kilometers, which is why it's the Subway Fresh Fit 500.
After 15 laps, Carl Edwards tells crew chief Bob Osborne that his No. 99 Ford has no grip and is sliding through the turns. Edwards is running 13th.
8:21 p.m.
Weather conditions are much warmer today than what the Cup teams practiced in and qualified in Friday.
Skies are clear and the wind is mild, but the temperature is 83, at least 10 degrees hotter than Friday.
The temperature will drop steadily during the race, which starts at 5:45 p.m. PT. That means the handling of the car will change as the track cools.
A big key to running well is having a crew chief who makes the right adjustments in the pits. That's a big reason Jimmie Johnson has won the past three races at Phoenix. Chad Knaus excels at making the car better in changing track conditions.
A problem for all the drivers in this race is the setting sun. It's directly in their faces as they enter Turn 1 early in the race. It can be blinding, causing drivers to lose sight of a car in front of them.
7:46 p.m.
Former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, now an NFL broadcaster for Fox, is officially Carl Edwards' sidekick tonight and an unofficial member of the No. 99 pit crew.
Strahan and Edwards hammed it up in the media center Saturday.
Edwards: "Michael told me the sidekick usually is the smaller guy."
Strahan: "Hey, I'll be his sidekick anytime because I don't have the nerve to do what he does in a car."
Edwards was asked if Strahan will have any duties in the pit stall: "If our jack fails he will just lift up that side of the car."
"You might find a banana in your tailpipe or something," Strahan said.
Strahan, who grew up in Germany while his father was in the service, was asked how fast he has driven a car.
"About 180 [mph]," he said. "But it wasn't on the autobahn. I do love cars and I do like to drive fast, but I like to be safe also, so I'll leave it on the track."
Strahan is a national spokesman for Subway, which is sponsoring tonight's race. He said he isn't in playing shape these days and can't keep up with Edwards' fitness routine, but Strahan does work out.
"I work out an hour a day,'' he said. "But 30 minutes of that is looking at the machines and thinking about what I would do if I used them."
Strahan said he was saddened to hear John Madden was retiring from broadcasting.
"Madden to me is the benchmark of any broadcaster," Strahan said. "I watched a lot of boring football games just because he was the one talking. I wouldn't have watched otherwise."
The big NFL story in Phoenix this week is whether Arizona Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin will be traded before the draft next weekend because Boldin wants to renegotiate his contract.
Strahan was asked whether he had any advice for Boldin.
"I know he's not happy being here, but complaining in the media doesn't help you," Strahan said. "If he has to stay here it isn't so bad. If he's going to New York, believe me, it's a lot colder.
"My main advice to all [NFL players] is just enjoy doing it, because it's over before you know it. Love it and have fun."
7:18 p.m.
Add Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the list of drivers who love two-day weekends like this one at Phoenix. Sprint Cup teams practice and qualify Friday and race Saturday.
"I love racing on Saturdays," Earnhardt said. "We always start the races so late on Sundays, and I really hate that. Being at the racetrack at 7 o'clock [p.m.] Sunday, I don't feel that's the way it should be. But starting late Saturday is OK. Racing on Saturday night is fine."
Earnhardt also said he isn't fond of racing on the West Coast.
"It's just so far from home [North Carolina]," he said. "I don't have a problem with the area. I just don't like traveling this far. But to come for just two days makes for a calm weekend."
Would Earnhardt like a two-day show and a Saturday race every week?
"Why not?" he asked.
But switching to more two-day shows isn't the first change Earnhardt would do if he was NASCAR czar for a day.
"The biggest thing I would do is shorten the schedule," he said. "The season is too long. But if I shortened it, I probably would want to put it back the next year. We probably need to stop complaining and go race."
Kyle Busch's victory at Las Vegas is the only time this season a pole-winner has gone to Victory Lane. Mark Martin has two poles this year without a win, but he has that look in his eyes after winning the pole at Phoenix.
Martin seems convinced that starting up front at Phoenix tonight gives him the best chance he's had all season of finishing on top.
"I was very happy with the car in race trim," Martin said about the final practice. "This is a good, solid race car."
Two of the past four winners at Phoenix started on the pole -- Jimmie Johnson in November and Jeff Gordon two years ago. Johnson has won the past three races on the 1-mile oval.
Martin's last victory was Oct. 9, 2005 at Kansas Speedway. He has competed in 97 events since then without winning.
Driving Hendrick equipment, that streak probably will end soon. Could tonight be the night?
Terry Blount covers motorsports for ESPN.com. His book, "The Blount Report: NASCAR's Most Overrated and Underrated Drivers, Cars, Teams, and Tracks," was published by Triumph Books and is available in bookstores. Click here to order a copy. Blount can be reached at terry@blountspeak.com.
