Mark Martin had a crash involving Dale Earnhardt during the practice session prior to the 1993 Miller Genuine Draft 400 at Michigan. According to this interview ( • Mark Martin sheds ligh... , Earnhardt made contact with him and Mark crashed.
The Roush Racing team repaired his car for raceday. Mark started 7th and he stormed his way to the lead by lap 13. Mark was the only car I saw in this race that could pull away from the rest of the field at will.
He made an unscheduled pit stop during the second caution flag on lap 22 after he felt some lug nuts were loose. He restarted 34th, but he absolutely barnstormed his way to the front, eventually taking the lead again by lap 49. CBS did a great job chronicling his progress. The onboard shots really showed how much faster Mark was compared to everyone else. Rusty Wallace's crew chief Buddy Parrott mentioned that Mark was on a vengeance on this day after what happened the previous day in practice with Earnhardt. There were questions about reliability, but the car would last the entire 400 miles.
Unfortunately, they did not have the best fuel mileage on this day. They tried to stretch their fuel tank, but he ran out of fuel with 8 laps to go. Perhaps he could have short pitted at let's say 25-30 laps to go and push hard to run down a fuel-saving Ricky Rudd, but that is not what happened. Rudd ended up winning the race. Instead of winning, Mark finished 6th.
It is still one of the most dominant displays I've ever seen with Mark Martin, where he is by far the class of the field. Of course, Mark would have more of these days and would win a lot more in the future.
Video is for awareness purposes only. All credit to NASCAR and CBS.
14 дек 2023
