He was quickest yesterday in final practice and he was quickest today in qualifying. Fifty year old, Batesville, Arkansas native Mark Martin took his #5 Carquest/Kellogg’s car out third and put it on the pole.
“I like making history,” he said after the run. Martin’s lap of 49.436 seconds (182.054 miles per hour) was .34 seconds faster than 2000 Indy 500 champ Juan Pablo Montoya who will start beside Martin tomorrow.
Their stories couldn’t be more different. Montoya, who hails from Bogota, Columbia will take his third stab at the Brickyard in a stock car while Martin will make his 16th start. He’s one of four drivers to make every Brickyard 400 field.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself to get a good lap today,” Martin said. And even though he’s used the term “dream come true” this weekend like he is a marketing rep from Disney, you could tell he was having the time of his life, even in talking to the media.
He told the story of his lap before he got off to jump in his #5 car for Happy Hour practice. “Let me tell you the story of that lap. Forty-nine seconds is actually quite a long lap. When I left the pits and went into turn three the car got kinda loose,” he explained.
“I like making history,” he said after the run. Martin’s lap of 49.436 seconds (182.054 miles per hour) was .34 seconds faster than 2000 Indy 500 champ Juan Pablo Montoya who will start beside Martin tomorrow.
Their stories couldn’t be more different. Montoya, who hails from Bogota, Columbia will take his third stab at the Brickyard in a stock car while Martin will make his 16th start. He’s one of four drivers to make every Brickyard 400 field.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself to get a good lap today,” Martin said. And even though he’s used the term “dream come true” this weekend like he is a marketing rep from Disney, you could tell he was having the time of his life, even in talking to the media.
He told the story of his lap before he got off to jump in his #5 car for Happy Hour practice. “Let me tell you the story of that lap. Forty-nine seconds is actually quite a long lap. When I left the pits and went into turn three the car got kinda loose,” he explained.
Martin won his fourth pole of the year at Indy
“It was free coming off four coming to the green and I went into one and I knew it was going to be loose and it was pretty free and pretty eventful. In two, it was pretty eventful,” he said, keeping reporters (and interns alike) hanging on every moment of his story.
“I thought about it for quite a long time heading down the backstretch and I went into three, in my phrase, ‘young and dumb’, and it was pretty eventful.”
And he wasn’t done there. Not yet.
“I had this flash heading into four of the five car on the wrecker,” he said while moving his hands across his body like he was carrying something, and laughing. Every person in the room laughed too.
“So, turn four wasn’t eventful. That sums my lap up, that’s what I had. Coming off of turn four not a tire on the car slipped,” he continued. “I was like, ‘That’s disgusting’.”
That’s right, the fifty year old Mark Martin said, “That’s disgusting.”
Even though he was the only driver of 47 to get to the 182 mile per hour mark he still felt he left something out on the track. “That lap I made at the end of practice yesterday was all of it,” he said. “All of it.”
If he gets all of it tomorrow the field could be in trouble.
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That’s all from Indy for now. Happy Hour is getting ready to begin and I’ve gotta go snap some photos for all of you to check up on within the next week. Even though Mark feels he’s having the time of his life, he’s certainly doing his best to make my life awesome this weekend too.
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