Viewer's Guide: Kansas

Mark Martin has been a popular topic for reporters all season long. However, most of that popularity has to do with his plans for next season.

This season, Martin is trying to win his first Cup championship and as the Chase for the Nextel Cup heads to Kansas Speedway on Sunday for the Banquet 400 (1:30 p.m. ET, NBC) Martin is in a position that he hasn't been in all season long.

Inside the Numbers Mark Martin's Cup career Year Starts W T5 T10 1981 5 0 1 2 1982 30 0 2 8 1983 16 0 1 3 1986 5 0 0 0 1987 1 0 0 0 1988 29 0 3 10 1989 29 1 14 18 1990 29 3 6 23 1991 29 1 4 17 1992 29 2 10 17 1993 30 5 12 19 1994 31 2 15 20 1995 31 4 13 22 1996 31 0 14 23 1997 32 4 16 24 1998 33 7 22 26 1999 34 2 19 26 2000 34 1 13 20 2001 36 0 3 15 2002 36 1 12 22 2003 36 0 5 10 2004 36 1 10 15 2005 36 1 12 19 2006 28 0 6 12 Totals 666 35 233 371

He's the defending race winner -- and the subject of Sunday's pre-race show feature.

"We are excited about going back to Kansas. It's cut out of the mold of the 1.5-mile tracks that have really been our bread and butter over the years," Martin said.

"Obviously, we were able to get the win there last year in the Chase and that was really a big win for this team. We were able to take two tires early and get out front in the lead and never really look back. Hopefully, we'll be able to go there and find that kind of formula for speed again and hopefully, we can take this No. 6 car back to Victory Lane."

Martin heads to Kansas after a 14th-place finish last week at Dover. He said it would have been better had it not been for some bad luck.

"We were pretty good at Dover and it was a good effort by the AAA team," he said. "But we were running in the top five and got caught off pit sequence with that caution and we just weren't quite good enough to come back from that."

Despite that, Martin says he's not going to leave anything on the table during the remainder of what he says will be his final Nextel Cup Series season.

"This is the last 10 races after 19 years and I've laid awake at night most of those races and I'm not gonna do it," Martin said. "I'm gonna drive the fool out of the racecar and I'm gonna leave it to Jack Roush and Pat Tryson to give me some good stuff, and if it doesn't work out, you know what, I made the Chase and we've had a great year.

"We're right on the verge of greatness."

Also on Sunday's pre-race show, Wally Dallenbach will take three-time Olympic gold medallist Jackie Joyner-Kersee for a ride around the track in another segment of Wally's World.

Martin and Casey Atwood are the scheduled guests for Friday's Trackside from Kansas (7 p.m. ET, SPEED). If you're going to Dover, the SPEED stage will be outside the main grandstands.

Speaking of SPEED, the network is bringing back Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Back in the Day for another season, signing a deal with Junior's production company, Hammerhead Entertainment, for another 13 episodes of the 30-minute homage to NASCAR races of the 1960s and '70s. New shows will debut during Daytona Speedweeks in 2007.

DVDs of the show's first season, a modern adaptation of the vintage race program Car and Track with Bud Lindemann, will be available in November.

In ratings news, last Sunday's Sylvania 300 drew a 3.1 overnight rating and a 6.8 share. That's nearly identical to the from 3.1/6.7 last season.

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In this week's edition of "Ask Wally and Benny," Kassen Klein of Parts Unknown wants to know how car numbers are determined.

Wally Dallenbach answered this time:

"The process of obtaining a number is that team owners request a number from NASCAR and if the number is not being used, the owner buys the number from NASCAR," Dallenbach said. "He then can hold onto it for as long as he chooses. Say that an owner wants to switch with another team's number or maybe somebody that was using that number is not using it anymore, that person has to buy that number from the team that owns it.

"It's tougher to get a number these days then it used to be because there were a lot less teams to work with 15 years ago," he said. "Most of the lower number are taken, like Rusty Wallace with the 2. Those guys had those numbers and they can keep them, so they are their numbers unless they give them back or they sell them.

"So if you were to enter NASCAR as a new driver next year, you would have to either find a team that may be going out of business and buy their number or you would have to end up with a pretty high number. If I really wanted the 25 number because it had something to do with my sponsor, I would go to Rick Hendrick and ask what it would take to buy that number. More than likely Rick would say no because there are a lot of things you have to change when you change a number on your team.

"Anyone coming into the sport now has to take whatever is left. Case in point is Carl Edwards' 99. There are not too many numbers left anymore, so they wound up with the 99.

"As far as Roush, he started out with the 6, he knew he couldn't get the 7, 8 or 9 so I'm sure it's no coincidence that he looked for numbers with 6's and took numbers that were left that had the 6 in it. Also, you're trying to find numbers that look good on the cars, that look fast, so to speak. You don't want to put big block numbers on your car, so the 26 looks a lot cooler than 56 ..."

Now on to this weekend's schedule.

Nextel Cup Series: Banquet 400

Track: Kansas Speedway

• 1.5-mile oval
• 15-degree banking in turns
• 5-degree banking on backstretch
• 10.4-degree banking on frontstretch
• Length of frontstretch: 4,300 feet
• Length of backstretch: 4,000 feet

Race length: 267 laps/400 miles

TV schedule (all times ET)

2005 FlashbackSee Mark Martin return to Victory Lane at Kansas Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

• NASCAR Live: 3:30 p.m. Fri., SPEED
• Bud Pole Qualifying: 4:30 p.m. Fri., SPEED
• Trackside: 7 p.m. Fri, SPEED
• Final practice: 1 p.m. Sat., SPEED
• NASCAR Live: 2 p.m. Fri., SPEED
• NASCAR Raceday: 11:30 a.m. Sun., SPEED
• Pre-race: 1:30 p.m. Sun., NBC
• Race: 2:10 p.m. Sun., NBC

One year ago, Mark Martin bounced back from a costly crash with a dominating victory at Kansas Speedway, keeping the veteran racer's slim championship hopes alive.

But to get the 35th victory of his career and stay in the hunt for the Nextel Cup, Martin had to hold off his teammates. A lot of them.

Martin and teammate Greg Biffle led Roush Racing's sweep of the top three spots, and Roush cars took four of the top five. It was the 46-year-old Martin's first since Dover in June 2004.

The most recent checkered flag went to Jeff Burton, who got by former teammate Matt Kenseth in the closing laps Sunday to win the Dover 400 and end a five-year winless streak.

Keep an eye on Jeff Gordon. Gordon won the first two races held at Kansas Speedway in 2001 and '02.

Busch Series: Yellow Transportation 300

Track: Kansas Speedway

• 1.5-mile oval
• 15-degree banking in turns
• 5-degree banking on backstretch
• 10.4-degree banking on frontstretch
• Length of frontstretch: 4,300 feet
• Length of backstretch: 4,000 feet

Race length: 200 laps/300 miles

TV schedule (all times ET)

• Race: 3 p.m. Sat., TNT

2005 FlashbackSee Kahne edge Biffle for the win at Kansas Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

One year ago, if Kasey Kahne had tried something like the move that won him the Busch race in the following day's Nextel Cup event, Greg Biffle vowed to make him pay for it.

The margin of victory -- .03 seconds -- was the fifth-closest since the series implemented electronic timing in 1993.

"If this is the Cup race, that's the last lap and that's what going on, it's going to be a different outcome, I can tell you that," said Biffle, who led 136 of 200 laps and clearly had the fastest car in the United Way 300.

The most recent checkered flag went to Clint Bowyer, who finally got his first Busch Series victory of the season Saturday, winning a green-white-checkered finish to the crash-marred Dover 200.

Keep an eye on Bowyer, who's from Emporia, Kan., approximately 100 miles from Kansas Speedway. He'll be making his third NASCAR Busch Series start at the track. He finished 32nd there in 2004 and 16th last season. But this year is different. Bowyer is coming off a big win at Dover International Speedway that has given the team a late-season boost.