Driver: Mark Martin
Car: No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet Monte Carlo
Track: Darlington (S.C.) Raceway (May 9, 2008)
Bio: Mark Martin was the king of NASCAR Xfinity Series events at Darlington Raceway, winning eight races on the fabled track in his first 28 starts there. In his last start, No. 29, he ended up at the bottom of Turn 1 with his GoDaddy.com Chevrolet from JR Motorsports battered at both ends.
The No. 5 Monte Carlo now resides with many of its brethren inside the lush preserve of the Racecar Graveyard, but in this race at Darlington, it was running second with four laps remaining. Martin trailed leader Tony Stewart as the field came toward the green flag, and when the flag waved, Martin pushed the throttle down, only to have it run out of gas with the entire field strung on a line behind him.
Martin kept his line, up near the wall, but the third-place car of Jason Leffler was directly behind with Leffler on the gas as well. Leffler crashed into the back of Martin’s car, which turned him right into the outside wall. As the field scattered to miss it, Mike Bliss turned Kelly Bires in the same manner that Martin’s was, and Mike Wallace piled into the mix as well. Sam Hornish Jr. and others picked up damage in the aftermath. Bires and Wallace were out of the race at that point, while Bliss and Hornish Jr. soldiered to the checkered five laps later.
As Martin came to a stop down near the inside wall, he radioed to crew chief Chad Walter that he’d run out of fuel. It was the second time that weekend that Martin had to climb out of a damaged JRM Chevrolet, as he’d wrecked in practice on Friday. The team went to a back-up for the race.
The crash saw Martin slotted 23rd at the finish, in his final series start at Darlington.