Mark Martin wins Sam’s Town 300

Mark Martin won the Sam's Town 300 to make track history, but Danica Patrick made NASCAR history.

Patrick, competing in her second Las Vegas race and 16th in NASCAR, placed fourth in the Nationwide Series event Saturday to post the best finish by a woman in a NASCAR national series since Sara Christian placed fifth in 1949 at Pittsburgh.

"(That's) something I don't normally think about," Patrick said of the feat. "I don't think about trying to achieve the highest finishing position for a female; I think about trying to win the race. If I made history, so be it."

The 28-year-old from Phoenix rallied after falling two laps down early when she had to pit her No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet under green-flag racing for mechanical adjustments.

"We just had a good car, that's all I can say. That's what makes a difference in these things," she said.

Patrick finished 35th at Las Vegas last year in her second NASCAR start. Her previous best finish was 14th two weeks ago at Daytona.

Martin seemed as happy with Patrick's performance as his own.

"That's awesome. That's fantastic," he said. "I'm real happy for her."

The victory was Martin's 49th in the Nationwide Series and fourth in six races in the series in Las Vegas. He set the speedway record for most wins in the 15-year history of the race.

Martin, who turned 52 on Jan. 9, caught the break of the day when leader Brad Keselowski's car grazed an outside guardwall on the last lap. That allowed Martin to beat Turner Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier for the win.

"I can't gloat," Martin said. "If Brad didn't have a tire problem, it looked like he would win."

Martin knew he had to save for a chance to challenge Keselowski, the reigning series champion, who said he ran over something and cut a tire.

"All I could do is make sure we didn't run out of gas," said Martin, who won the first Las Vegas Cup race in 1998.

"When I caught Brad, I realized it was going to take all the gas I had to get by him because he wanted to race. I didn't feel confident I could make it (on gas) and pass him."

Keselowski, who took third, crashed in this year's first two Nationwide races.

He wasn't the only disappointed driver. Kyle Busch led a race-high 84 laps and built an early lead of 10 seconds before crashing his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on lap 130 to finish 30th.

"Unfortunately, I screwed up. That's why I run these races -- so I can learn and not do it tomorrow," he said, referring to today's Sprint Cup race, for which he qualified fifth.

Busch made an abrupt move to go low in the fourth turn to pass cars when he made contact with Keselowski. That sent Busch onto the edge of the infield grass, where he spun and ran into an inside guardwall.

"I had a really big run off the top and I didn't want to go to the outside," Busch sad. "I guess (Keselowski) came to block a little bit. I didn't want to run into him, so I went into the grass, and I know the grass typically doesn't work, so I looked kind of stupid doing that.

"Tried to hang onto it, and just couldn't get it back straight in enough time and got into the inside wall."

Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0247.