Mark Martin On Top, Wins Pole for Phoenix Race

Mark Martin won the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race with a lap time of 136.184 miles per hour, while Tony Stewart, last year’s Sprint Cup champion, was a close second at 136.126 mph. The rest of the top ten are as follows: 3–Regan Smith, 4–Jimmie Johnson, 5–Juan Montoya, 6–Ryan Newman, 7–Greg Biffle, 8–Kevin Harvick, 9–Joey Logano, 10–Kasey Kahne.

Mark Martin has raced in NASCAR’s top series since 1981–that’s over 30 years (almost half of his life) spent behind the wheel of a stock car. He has participated in 831 races, and won 51 poles (not including this week’s). Throughout his whole career, however, he has yet to win the Championship. Who knows, maybe this will be his year?

The green flag will fly at this week’s NASCAR venue, Phoenix International Raceway, on Sunday at 2:30pm Eastern Time. Following from last week’s crazy race, we will see if Danica Patrick will make it through the whole race in one piece, hope that Juan Montoya avoids all the track equipment, and that the weather cooperates (although with the expected temperature of 80 degrees, I think we will be just fine).

So, who do you think will win this weekend’s Sprint Cup Series race? Will it be Mark Martin, this week’s pole sitter, one of the Hencrick drivers (two of which are in the top ten), or someone else? Post your thoughts below.