Martin Finds the Lead and Stays There

FONTANA —  Mark Martin was where he usually is lately in the International Race of Champions.

In front.

It was the place to be Saturday at California Speedway, where Martin took the lead on the 13th lap of the 50-lap race and held it the rest of the way, edging Al Unser Jr. by 0.218 seconds in Round 2 of the four-round series.

“If I had been behind him, I could never have passed him,” said Martin, who won his fifth IROC race in his last eight tries and his second in a row at Fontana by averaging 162.089 mph on the two-mile track.

He’s probably right.

“That’s just racing in NASCAR,” said Unser, who drives in the CART series for a living and likens IROC’s identically prepared Pontiac Firebirds to the stock cars that Martin drives on the Winston Cup circuit.

“I’ve watched it for years. The draft is crucial. The draft is everything.”

Staying in the draft kept Unser on Martin’s bumper through the race’s latter stages.

“While [Jeff] Gordon and somebody else--I don’t know who [Terry Labonte]--were racing, Martin gave me the ‘in-line sign,’ but I knew to stay there,” Unser said.

When he pulled low on the track to try to pass on the 49th lap, Martin cut him off. When Unser went high, Martin went high to block, the two cars taking a one-second lead over a pack of four that was led by Gordon.

Gordon, who had won a rain-shortened Round 1 at Daytona in February, started last, moved to the front by the eighth lap--taking over the lead from Unser in doing so--and finished third.

“My car was good through the corners, but he would get runs at me on the straightaways,” Martin said of his race with Unser. “He did a great job and made it a heck of a race.”

It was Martin’s seventh IROC victory overall, tying him with Dale Earnhardt for second in that category in the 22-year-old series.

Unser has won 11.

“I didn’t know if I would be able to hold him off,” said Martin, the defending series champion. “We got through traffic well and got to the lead and sat there.”

And took the lead in the IROC points race with 45, to Gordon’s 38 with Round 3 of the $760,000 series that pays $225,000 to the winner set for Michigan Speedway on June 13.

*

A breath of air was leaked from Ken Schrader’s right front tire, and the move inflated his bank account by $16,300 when he held off Kevin Harvick to win the Auto Club 200 race in the Winston West series before 55,000.

In the process, Schrader also inflated the knowledge he and the crew of his Winston Cup car will have going into today’s California 500.

Schrader will start 11th.

“They’re changing the springing on my car right now,” said Schrader, who will drive anything that will race, and on Saturday steered a Chevrolet Monte Carlo with less horsepower and a taller spoiler than his Winston Cup car at an average speed of 138.621 mph in the 100-lap event, winning by 1.314 seconds.

Schrader had qualified almost 4 1/2 mph faster than the rest of the field, but Harvick, a 22-year-old from Bakersfield, stayed with him for much of the race.

“I learned patience,” said Harvick, the series points leader. “Right off the bat, I caught myself being a little too impatient, a little too racy too soon.”

The two traded the lead for most of the day, only Mike Dillon breaking their stranglehold on the race, and that only when Schrader and Harvick made pit stops.

Harvick held a short lead when Ricky Logan spun out for the second time, on Lap 74.

Harvick and Schrader both needed fuel to finish the race, and Harvick’s pit crew changed two left-side tires while adding gas. In Winston West racing, only two tires may be changed in a pit stop.

Schrader’s pit crew sized up the situation and discovered the only serviceable tires he had left were already on the car.

A Winston West team gets 14 tires for a weekend of practice, qualifying and racing, and “we only mounted three sets,” team General Manager Steve Barkdoll said.

So, the crew, needing to change the handling on Schrader’s car, leaked two pounds of air from the right front tire, added gas and he took off.

“And saved them [$730] on the tire bill,” Schrader cracked.

From there, it was a matter of holding off Harvick, in the process doing a bit of research.

“We didn’t have anything for Schrader,” Harvick said.

Neither did Nipper Alsup nor Sean Woodside, who finished third and fourth, respectively and were the only drivers still on the lead lap at race’s end.