For Martin, Bodine and Musgrave It's Déjà Vu All Over Again

Mark Martin is having the time of his life competing in the Craftsman Truck Series and it definitely shows. For the second consecutive week, Martin held off Germaine Racing teammates Todd Bodine and Ted Musgrave in a green/white/checker sprint to the finish.
This time, Martin put his name in the history books as the first driver ever to win at California Speedway in the IROC Series as well as all three of NASCAR's national touring divisions - Cup, Busch and Trucks.

Martin and Bodine swapped the lead twice in the final 30 laps and Martin took the top spot for the final time off Turn 4 with less than 20 laps to go in the advertised distance. When Mike Wallace slammed the wall on Lap 99 it brought out the caution that neither Martin nor Bodine wanted to see. Just like at Daytona however, Martin was able to drive his line and successfully hold off Bodine. "I knew it was pretty much a no-brainer without the green/white/checker," said Martin. "(Bodine) made me work for it. He got behind me and got me loose but I just stabbed the gas on this F-150 and made it to the line. I'm having a blast."

Bodine had to battle back after a penalty for jumping a restart sent him to the rear of the field early in the race. With plenty of time to make up the deficit, Bodine and his crew worked their pit strategy to perfection and got back into contention for the victory. "I just needed it to go green," said Bodine. "When the yellow came out I had cut (Martin's) lead down to about three truck lengths. We were coming but with a green/white/checker it's hard to get going. If we could have had five laps I think we could have done something with him."

Ted Musgrave scored his sixth top-five finish in six track starts but came up two positions short of his fourth trip to California Speedway's Victory Lane.
"I thought I had a shot at them," Musgrave said. "I was rolling through (Turns) 1 and 2 a lot better than Mark and Todd. But when I came up I really had to hit the brakes hard to keep from running into my teammate and they jumped away from me after that. Third place again, for a new deal? I'm happy."
The Craftsman Truck Series will take a two weekend hiatus before getting back to business at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 24th for Race #3.

In what seemed to be a replay of last week's finish at Daytona, Mark Martin held off Todd Bodine and Ted Musgrave to win Friday night's racetickets.com 200 at California Speedway. Mike Wallace's hard crash with two laps remaining set up a green-white-checkered finish for the second week in a row. Just like at Daytona, Martin was forced to hold off teammates Bodine and Musgrave. Bodine rallied from an early penalty for passing on a restart to take the lead, only to have Martin regain the top spot.