#6-Mark Martin, in his final Nextel Cup season, won the Nextel All-Star Challenge at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Martin also won segment 1 and was strong all night, leading 24 laps. It is the 2nd win in the All-Star race for Martin [also in 1998], Martin said if they field a car for him in 2006, he’d run it in the All-Star race. Martin is the oldest driver to ever win the event. Finishing 2nd was #38-Elliott Sadler, followed by #25-Brian Vickers [the Nextel Open winner], #24-Jeff Gordon and #48-Jimmie Johnson. Wrecks and problems left 11 drivers on the lead lap at the end, with three of them damaged. #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr. was never a factor and was involved in the ‘Big One’ when #20-Stewart got into #01-Nemechek, who turned into #29-Harvick. Some bad blood between Harvick and Nemechek boiled over, with Harvick firing his HANS at the windshield of Nemechek and words between the two a few times, Ten cars were involved in the wreck, with 7 retiring right after the wreck. #12-Newman got loose on the Segment 3 restart and slid backwards into the wall and collected his ‘teammate’ #2-Rusty Wallace, who had no place to go. See my All-Star Challenge Page for the Nextel Open results, Each segment results and starting lineup for each segment.
See reults on my Nextel Open/Nextel All-Star Challenge Results page.(5-21-2005)
