Martin nearly broke career Pocono jinx in 1996 race (cont'd)

Then things went askew. With 40 laps to go, NASCAR officials spotted debris in Turn 2 and threw the yellow. That bunched up the field behind Martin as the leaders headed for service. And a pit crew that had been flawless all afternoon had the most inopportune hiccup. A lug nut hung up in the air wrench of the rear tire changer, forcing Martin to make a costly second stop to complete the service.

"Obviously, I hated to see that caution," Martin said. "We were all set and things were looking good. During the stop we stuck a lug nut in the socket and I had to pit a second time to get the right-rear tire changed."

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But bad luck for Martin turned into a huge break for Wallace, who came out of the pits directly behind Ricky Rudd.

''My problem was we kept going green all day,'' Wallace said. ''I qualified bad again and I worked my way up. But there were no caution flags, and the leaders were way out there. When the caution flag finally came, it bunched us all up and put a race back into it.''

In addition, Wallace's crew made some key adjustments that freed the car up for the final sprint.

"That caution period gave my crew the opportunity we needed to make the adjustments necessary for us to have a chance to win the race," Wallace said. "We lessened the air pressure in the right-side tires to loosen the car up. That made it turn a lot better."

Nine laps later, Wallace ducked under Rudd in the tunnel turn for what turned out to be the winning pass. Two more cautions, one for Kenny Wallace's blown engine and another for a two-car accident involving Brett Bodine and Joe Nemechek, gave Rudd a couple of chances to return the favor, but he was never able to get close enough to get his Ford alongside Wallace's car.

"As the race wound down Ricky's car handled a little bit better than mine in Turn 1 and he'd close up on me," Wallace said. "But we were better in Turns 2 and 3 and I could stretch the lead out on him."

Rudd admitted that he was more worried about finishing than trying to catch Wallace in the closing laps.

"We had some alternator smoke showing from the car," Rudd said. "The alternator was overcharging and boiled all the fluid out of the battery. We didn't know if we'd have enough juice to finish the race."

For Martin, the bungled pit stop was costly. Mired in 10th place on the restart, Martin wasn't a factor the rest of the way, finishing a disappointing ninth despite leading a race-high 121 laps.

If there's a postscript to the story, a silver lining to Martin's dark cloud if you will, consider this. Martin finished eighth in the series' last visit to Pennsylvania and led 55 laps, the most he's led at Pocono since that 1996 race.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.