For the second time this week, Kyle Busch played the role of spoiler as he denied Mark Martin a win in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway Saturday night during his 1,000th NASCAR series start.
Martin, who started from the pole, showed plenty of emotion during pre-race festivities honoring his milestone and almost took home a victory to celebrate his accomplishment.
Busch and Martin raced hard in the closing laps, surviving a late race red flag, to battle side-by-side to the finish. Marcos Ambrose, who told fans during the special driver intros that he just hoped to finish the race, brought his car across the line with a third place finish. Greg Biffle finished fourth and Denny Hamlin claimed fifth.
Busch, who snagged his third win at the World's Fastest Half Mile, completed the first Bristol season sweep since his older brother Kurt did so in 2003. While he relished his victory, Busch acknowledged that racing against Martin was even more special.
"I drove as hard as I could," Busch explained. "Mark deserved it. I know how bad he wanted it. He raced me clean."
"It is fun when you can race against guys you respect and that respect you back. I look up to him a lot. Since I got here, he is one of the ones I spend time with most."
Martin said the respect the two drivers have for each other was the reason he did not put the bumper to Busch at the end of the race.
"I'd like to have won, but we got a decent finish," Martin said. "I expect Kyle to race me hard and clean, and he did. He can expect the same from me. I didn't need to use the bumper. Kyle gave me all the room in the world and it was good because I was in over my head when I went into that corner."
Busch echoed Martin's sentiments.
"It is such an honor to race with him," said Busch, "to give him the room he needed and for him to give me the room I needed was awesome."
For Ambrose, a driver who began competing in NASCAR after making a trip to Bristol to witness the track's atmosphere, racing up front with some of the sport's best drivers was one of dreams.
"It was a wonderful night for me," he explained. "To race against Mark in his 1000th start and against Kyle Busch, who will go down as one of the greatest, I was in special territory up there and thrilled to be there."
"Here I am with nine laps to go with these legend drivers and I'm like, ‘Why am I here?'"
The sold-out Sharpie 500 always has a spectacular feel about it, and Saturday night's event was no different. From a pre-race show that featured a tribute to America's soldiers to a side-by-side tussle for the win at the end of the race, the evening was pure Bristol.
The recognition of Martin's 1000th NASCAR series start brought tears to the veteran's eyes.
"It was incredible what the fans did tonight," he said, voice cracking. "To me, 1000 starts is not much, but what they did, it made me cry. I'm thankful to do what I did tonight; drive a fast race car and finish where we should. I bet we had the fans on their feet."
The thrilling atmosphere also was noticed by someone with a lot of experience dealing with large, charged up crowds.
"That crowd may be one of the best sporting crowds I've been around," said Busch's team owner, Joe Gibbs. "It was electric out there."
