Martin keeps points lead with brilliant showing

Despite starting 32nd, Martin finishes second

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DOVER, Del. -- When Mark Martin put himself in a hole by qualifying 32nd as the point leader on Friday, he felt he had no place to go but up on race day.

Did he ever.

When the checkered flag fell on Jimmie Johnson in the MBNA All-American Heroes 400 at Dover International Speedway, Martin was right behind him. More importantly, he now has a 30-point lead over Johnson in the points standings.

At times, it looked like the determined Martin was even going to pass the rookie.

"We could get to him, but then the front end would push," Martin said. "It was awfully great run by this whole team with great pit stops.

"We put ourselves in a pitiful hole there on Friday with a dumb qualifying effort we had. And, we dug our way out. We could've made an adjustment on the last stop, but we decided to be conservative.

"We didn't want to let something slip through our fingers."

Flashbacks to 1990

If anyone knows about things slipping away, it would be Martin.

In 1990, Martin led the points after 16 of the 29 races that year, only to end up losing the title to Dale Earnhardt on the final day of the season by only 26 points.

Martin has been here before and knows not to get too excited yet. But, he seems to be more keyed up about keeping the points lead this time.

"One little stub of your toe in a race can cost you, whether it's your fault or not, can cost you 10-20 positions," Martin said. "It's upside down every time you go to a race track now. You rarely use the same set up you used last time.

"This business has dealt me some very cruel and heartbreaking blows -- it's not going to this year. It just won't. I am prepared for whatever happens.

"I am so proud of this team and we're going to bust our butts to win this championship."

Marlin slips to fourth

While Martin is on a roll, Sterling Marlin took a huge hit in the points battle.

Coming into Dover, Marlin trailed by only six points. But, with his 21st-place finish in the No. 40 Dodge, combined with Johnson's win and Tony Stewart's fifth, Marlin is now 81 points out.

	Sterling Marlin Credit: Autostock

"The last two weeks we haven't had the best Dodge," said Tony Glover, team manager for Chip Ganassi Racing. "Once we do that, then we've got to get some help because we're just at a disadvantage right now.

"We're not giving up on trying to win the championship. We're not out of it."

Johnson's victory pushed him up to second where he trails Martin. Stewart jumped to third and is 74 points out of first and 44 behind Johnson.

After leading the race twice for 34 laps, Stewart managed to hang in the top spots long enough for his 12th top-five finish of the year. Jeff Gordon got in accident on lap 65 and ended up finishing 81 laps down in 37th place.

As the series heads to Kansas, the defending race winner of and series champion of Gordon is fifth, 190 points out of it. Rusty Wallace stayed in the sixth spot despite suffering a flat-right front on lap 318, while running third, that sent him into the wall.

He finished 15th, but is now 198 points out of the lead and only eight behind Gordon. Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth each moved up one spot into seventh and eighth place while Bill Elliott dropped two to ninth.