— July 11 — 1981: In his third Cup race, 22-year-old Mark Martin starts from the pole for the first time. Martin leads the first 36 laps of the Busch Nashville 420 at Nashville (Tenn.) Speedway and finishes 11th. Darrell Waltrip leads 303 laps and picks up one of his eight wins on the.596-mile track. Martin, now 50, has 44 poles, tied with Ryan Newman for 11th all time.(NASCAR.com)
