Monday, April 26, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Martz captures first Late Models

His mom is Montana governor, ex-speed skater

By JEFF WOLF
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Justin Martz's mother can relate to what it's like to race around an oval track.

Judy Martz, Montana's governor, had taken only a few laps in her husband's stock car before they were married in 1965, but as a former U.S. Olympic speed skater she winces whenever her 34-year-old son's race cars careen toward a guardwall.

"In speed skating you're not going the same speed, but if you go down and go into the wall, it hurts," she said.

But the governor didn't have any flashbacks Saturday night as she watched her son win his first Super Late Models race during the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's Bullring.

"He said (Friday) night he was going to win," she said. "He was in that zone."

A fair analysis from the 1964 Olympian.

Martz became the third driver on Jerry Spilsbury's Quality Motorsports team to win a Super Late Models race on the three-eighths mile paved oval as an estimated crowd of 1,500 watched the third race of the season.

Martz posted the quickest qualifying time but started fourth as the pre-race dice roll determined the four top qualifiers would invert their order to begin the 50-lap race.

Thane Alderman, the division's 2002 track champion, dominated after taking the lead from Spencer Clark on the fifth lap and built his lead to 3.77 seconds just past the halfway mark. A yellow flag bunched the field for the restart of lap 28 and lapped cars let Alderman get back to a nearly two-second lead in one circuit.

Another caution, the fourth of the race, erased Alderman's lead again and on the restart Martz dropped to the inside going into the third turn of lap 42 and was able to pass Alderman, who began to fade to an eighth-place finish.

Martz received a little help with around five laps to go when his No. 60 stock car bobbled coming out of the fourth turn, but one of his teammates, runner-up Mike Ray, nudged his bumper and it seemed to straighten Martz.

"I got real loose and he just bumped me," Martz said. "It was comforting to know he was back there.

"The car came in around five laps into a run. It was really bad on cold tires, but once the tires warmed up it was a rocket ship. There are just a lot of good people working on these cars."

Following Ray across the finish line were Clark, Chris Clyne and rookie Travis Swalwell.

In other races, three drivers posted their first feature victories at the Bullring.

Josh Gross, 12-year-old seventh-grader at Keller Middle School, won the Legends Cars Semi-Pro feature.

Steve Ray, Mike Ray's 23-year-old son, stopped Dave Green's two-race winning streak by winning the Thunder Roadsters feature.

Jim Petrie, a former Nevada state high school wrestling champion, survived a pair of late race caution periods to hold off Phil Goodwin in Chargers.