If Mark Martin is ever leading the British Open on the 72nd hole you can bet he’ll look at the leader board. The Winston Cup veteran knew exactly what he had to do here Saturday in the final race of the International Race of Champions Series.
So he helped Al Unser Jr. get to the front and let him stay there. Unser won the battle, claiming his record eighth IROC victory, but Martin won the war-the $200,000 IROC series championship.
“I tried to study the points before I came here so I’d know what I had to do,” said Martin, whose second-place finish wrapped up the title in the four-race series. “Wouldn’t it have been ugly if I’d tried to pass Little Al on the last lap and didn’t make it and Rusty (Wallace) would go by me and win the championship?”
For a time it appeared that Wallace, who finished third in the race and the point standings, would do what he needed to do, which was to lead the most laps and win the race.
After 20 laps, Wallace had led 19 of them and “it was looking pretty bleak for a while,” said Martin, who was running fifth at the time. It looked even bleaker a moment later when, after Dale Earnhardt had pushed Unser into the lead, Jack Baldwin spun, bringing out a yellow flag that, by IROC rules, wiped out the lap and restored Wallace to the front.
“I knew when Little Al got up front if I ran second we’d win,” said Martin. “I did everything I could to push him along.”
By winning the race Unser forged a three-way tie with Wallace and Earnhardt for second place overall, but as the race winner he was awarded second and its $100,000 purse. It was the fourth time he has been the series runner-up. He has won the championship twice.
Foyt behind the wheel: It’s official. A.J. Foyt will come back as a driver next week when he attempts to qualify for the Brickyard 400 stock car race in Indianapolis. It will be his first race since the 1992 Indianapolis 500. “Last week at the final test was when I decided I’d do it,” said the 59-year-old, four-time Indy 500 winner.
“I was wanting to run here real bad after (Bryan) Herta got hurt, but I made U.S. Tobacco (his sponsor) a certain promise. I promised I’d get out of racing Indy cars but I never said I’d get out of stock cars.”
Eddie Cheever is running Foyt’s Indy car for the rest of the season, but Herta has been promised he’ll have a ride next year if he recovers from the injuries he suffered at Toronto.
Injury update: Driver Alessandro Zampedri was more seriously injured than it first appeared when he crashed in practice Friday. Early indications were that he had suffered only a cut hand, but Dr. Terry Trammell said Saturday that the 24-year-old Italian driver had a bruised liver and possible broken right hip socket. He was listed in stable condition at Foote Memorial Hospital.