Ron Kantowski: Mark Martin attains another 1st at LVMS

He won 40 NASCAR Cup Series races, including the first one at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1998, and competed with the kind of poise and dignity that often is absent from his sport — which explains why Mark Martin will be honored at this weekend’s South Point 400 as the first member of the Speedway Legends program.

“We’re borrowing a page out of the book of Jack Nicklaus and his Memorial Tournament,” LVMS President Chris Powell said. “Each year, the Memorial honors a past great from golf. By honoring a stellar performer from yesteryear in NASCAR, we can give a new generation of race fans an appreciation for those who helped shape the sport.”

As expected, Martin said he was honored to be the first so feted. But his reputation as a thinking man’s driver, combined with him having retired to Montana near Glacier National Park, where life moves about as slowly as the local meteorological monuments, allows more time for reflection and introspection about honors and legacies and such.

So he shared an insight about a man and his monkey.

The man was Martin’s fellow NASCAR Hall of Famer Tim Flock. The monkey was called Jocko Flocko. It rode shotgun with Flock during the 1950s before a pebble flew into the cockpit agitating the monkey, which forced Flock to make an unscheduled pit stop that cost him a victory in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“I wasted the opportunity to laugh and have fun,” Martin, 63, said about being so focused on his own career that he chose not to engage Flock at functions where both were present. “I know now how honored he would have felt to have a young person interested in what he did and what he accomplished.”

Famous bridesmaid

Mark Martin never won the NASCAR championship, but he finished second five times. He also finished third four times and won 49 races in what now is called the Xfinity Series, including a record four at LVMS.

Curiously, he doesn’t remember a whole lot about winning the first Cup Series race at the track. It was the dawn of an era in which his longtime car owner, Jack Roush, and his drivers practically owned LVMS, they won here so often.

On March 1, 1998, Martin led a race-high 82 laps and a procession of Roush drivers to the checkered flag. Teammates Jeff Burton, Johnny Benson Jr., Ted Musgrave and Chad Little finished second, fourth, sixth and 10th.

There were an estimated 120,000 spectators in the sprawling grandstands, obliterating the record for the greatest single-day attendance for a sporting event in Nevada. But the three most remembered by the diminutive Martin were Wayne Newton and the two showgirls who towered over him in victory lane.

As for the race itself, “I remember developing a vibration — we had a rich history of mechanical problems through my career — so I was extremely concerned that was going to be another DNF,” he recalled.

Copter caper

But instead of a Did Not Finish, Martin finished first. He would win six more races that season. But it was the first one that most resonated. It came in Las Vegas, of all places, where the lights were a bit brighter than what a NASCAR driver from the Ozarks was used to.

“I don’t remember a lot of details, but because it was the inaugural race — and because it was Las Vegas —there was a lot more to do in the press room after the victory celebration,” he said. “When we finished it was nearly dark.”

By then, Wayne Newton had said danke schoen and the statuesque showgirls adios. About the only soul remaining was the pilot of the helicopter waiting patiently to take the winner of the first NASCAR Cup Series race in Las Vegas to the airport.

As the blades whirred and the chopper lifted, Martin said he felt like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.” He wasn’t in Kansas, anymore. Or the dusty bullrings in Arkansas where he grew up trading paint with guys who had packs of cigarettes rolled up in their T-shirt sleeves.

“As we got above the speedway and I looked down and saw it was empty, I realized — just for a split second — that we had accomplished something that was pretty neat,” he said.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.