TOOELE, Utah — Luis Martinez arrived Friday for the Larry H Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix at Miller Motorsports Park for round #3 of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West season. The first road course event of the season was eagerly anticipated by the series sophomore as this was the track in which he made his series debut and one that he’s always been fond of. Despite the past couple of races in which tire issues prevented a top-10 finish, the always-optimistic Martinez had high hopes coming into this weekend’s event.
"A caution on lap #9 brought the field together and the restart on lap #12 allowed the 3rd place of David Mayhew to get past Martinez. "
Despite the cold temperatures that brought with it snow the day prior, the race day’s events started on time and without fear of a repeat of the snowfall. Martinez took to the track for the first and only practice session of the weekend and the young 21 year old raced the No 6 King Taco/Sunrise Ford/Lucas Oil Ford entry to the top of the charts and stayed there throughout the session.
With a solid practice session under his belt, Martinez went out for qualifying and muscled his car around the newly configured 2.2-mile road course and went straight to the top. Canadian Andrew Ranger would eventually take the pole position with Martinez trailing in the 2nd spot. While he may not have been on the pole, Martinez and crew were satisfied with the result, as they have spent the last 2 weeks working late nights on the road course car and even spent last week at the track testing.
With dark threatening clouds above, and the temperature dipping to the low 40’s, the 34-car field lined up and as the green flag dropped the field screamed across. Martinez and Ranger immediately pulled away from the rest of the field. Martinez was relentless behind Ranger; looking for a way past him. A caution on lap #9 brought the field together and the restart on lap #12 allowed the 3rd place of David Mayhew to get past Martinez. Ranger eventually pitted and Martinez regained his 2nd spot. Another caution on lap #19 once again brought the field together. Martinez pits on the following lap, along with the majority of the leader pack. The order gets reshuffled and Martinez rejoins the race in the 10th spot by the time the race gets underway on lap #23. Midway through the race Martinez is still solidly in the 10th spot and looking to move up. The third caution of the race comes out on lap #28 once again bringing the field together. After a long yellow period, Martinez would restart in the 7th spot. Martinez’s restart was not without incident though and he and Michael Self got together. Martinez took the brunt of the incident and he was forced to pit after sustaining damage to the right side. The combination of the incident and the ensuing pit stop put him back to the 18th spot. On lap #46, five laps after the restart, Martinez plowed his way to the 11th spot and was looking to take away the 10th spot of his teammate Rod Johnson Jr. With 15 laps left in the race Martinez threw the hammer down and raced his way passed the 9th and 8th place cars and found himself soon racing for the 7th and 6th spot. With the race coming to a close and the pressure to move even further up Martinez continued his unreal charge and sprinted across the finish line in 6th. The incredible effort represents Martinez’s best finish this season, besting his 7th place finish at round #2 (All American Speedway).
Martinez and the Sunrise Ford team return to competition on May 21st for the East-West Combination Race pres. by Tompkins Industries at Iowa Speedway.
Luis Martinez Driver No. 6 - “We had a very exciting but frustrating race. A lot of ups and downs. The Sunrise Ford crew did an amazing job in getting me back out on track after all of the incidents that we went through. In the end we had a good finish and it's keeping us in the points hunt. Thank you to all my sponsors who make it possible for me to do this"
