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Features

Then & Now

NASCAR.COM pays tribute to two outgoing vets
and welcomes two rookies to the Cup fold.

Each week will preview one year in the career of the retiring drivers,
as well as a pop-culture look at what's going on in the world today.
Mark Martin

Mark Martin

Rusty Wallace

Rusty Wallace

Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace first raced against each other at Martinsville in 1988. Dale Earnhardt won the Pannill Sweatshirts 500 on April 24, while Wallace finished 16th and Martin was 23rd.

Martin's first trip to Martinsville, on Sept. 27, 1981, resulted in a third-place finish. It was the last of five Cup races he ran that year. Wallace's first race at the .526-mile track was on April 29, 1984; he finished 15th.

Sunday will be Martin's 39th race at Martinsville. He has two wins, 10 top-fives and 20 top-10 finishes. Martin's average finish is 12.9, and he has six DNFs.

Sunday's Advance Auto Parts 500 will be Rusty Wallace's 43rd start at Martinsville. He has seven wins, 16 top-fives and 24 top-10 finishes. Wallace's average finish is 11.9, and he has seven DNFs.

Kyle Busch

Kyle Busch

Travis Kvapil

Travis Kvapil

Nextel Cup rookie Kyle Busch will be making his first trip to Martinsville Speedway, while fellow newbie Travis Kvapil looks to improve on his first top-10 finish last week at Bristol.

Busch, who finished second at Las Vegas in the season's third race, struggled last week in the schedule's first short-track event. Still, he holds a slim 62-56 lead over Kvapil in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year standings.

Kvapil made his Cup debut at Matinsville on Oct. 24, 2004, the first of three races he ran last year -- and the only one in whcih he finished on the lead lap. After qualifying fifth, Kvapil finished 21st in the Subway 500.

In six career Craftsman Truck Series starts at Martinsville, he has one top-five finish -- as runner-up to Scott Riggs in Kvapil's first race at the track in April 2001 -- among two top-10s.

Also in 1994 ...

  • News
  • June 12 -- Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles. O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in a civil suit.
  • Entertainment
  • April 8 -- Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, is found dead in his Seattle home. He had committed suicide three days earlier.
  • Sports
  • May 1 -- Formula One driver Ayrton Senna dies at the age of 34 in a high-speed, single-car crash in the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy.
  • Deaths
  • Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill ... actor Telly Savalas (Kojak) ... actor Sorrell Booke (Dukes of Hazzard's Boss Hogg) ... stock car driver Neil Bonnett ... former president Richard Nixon ... serial killers John Wayne Gacy (executed by lethal injection) and Jeffrey Dahmer (murdered in prison) ... athlete Wilma Rudolph

Also in 2005 ...

  • News
  • April 2 -- Pope John Paul II, who left a deeply conservative stamp on the church that he led for 26 years, dies in his Vatican apartment, ending a long public struggle against debilitating illness. He was 84.
  • Entertainment
  • April 4 -- Pop princess Britney Spears and husband Kevin Federline say "I do" to star in a UPN reality series that documents their courtship, engagement and wedding.
  • Sports
  • April 3 -- Devil Rays OF Alex Sanchez is the first big league player to be suspended under MLB's new policy on performance-enhancing drugs. The 10-day penalty covers eight games.
  • Still to come in 2005 ...
  • October -- The movie Last Days -- with Michael Pitt starring in a Seattle-set rock and roll drama as a musician whose life and career is reminiscent of Kurt Cobain's -- is directed by Gus Van Sant and scheduled for release.
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