DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997                TAG: 9704210179

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C4   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   68 lines

NASCAR REPORT

No checkered flag,

but Martin came

away a winner

MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Mark Martin won the battle within a battle Sunday in the Goody's 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Starting somewhere west of Peoria, Martin battled across half a continent to finish third behind winner Jeff Gordon and Bobby Hamilton.

Actually, he started 39th. And he had one of the worst pit stalls on the track. But the gritty driver from Arkansas worked his way through the field, used a two-tire pit strategy near the end to advance to the front and then hung on as his brakes faded to almost nothing.

Only two other drivers who pitted on the backstretch finished in the top 10. Jeremy Mayfield was seventh and Ken Schrader finished 10th. And both had better pit positions.

``It was unbelievable,'' Martin said. ``I want to dedicate this thing to Roush Racing and (manager) Steve Hmiel and (crew chief) Jimmy Fennig for putting a set up under me and putting us in a position to overcome such a horrendous handicap of starting 39th.''

Martin, who had struggled all weekend, came to the track Sunday morning to find that his crew was changing everything on his chassis setup.

``I had never run this setup before,'' Martin said. ``I told 'em it wasn't right, but it was the closest we've ever been to right here.''

Martin had to run extremely hard to advance through the field and in the process used up his brakes. With 100 laps to go, Martin told his team on the radio: ``My brakes are almost already gone. This last run about did 'em in. I'll try to make it to the end, but they're about gone.''

After it was over, Martin said: ``I had brakes. I just didn't have as much as I needed. We were making the best of the situation.''

Grissom wins battle

of injured with Craven

Steve Grissom won the battle of the injured drivers Sunday, finishing 20th, two positions ahead of Ricky Craven. Both were two laps down.

Grissom drove with a broken right foot; Craven drove with a broken right shoulder blade and two broken ribs.

``My foot is okay,'' said Grissom. ``It tingled a little bit after I turned off the engine after the race, but that didn't last long. I had a special pad on it, and that took a lot of pressure off.''

Said Craven, ``This is as tough as it gets physically. I feel pretty good. I'm sore. But it's incredible when you consider I was laying in a hospital bed two weeks ago and here we are today running 498 laps at Martinsville.''

Craven's biggest problem was not his soreness, but the fact that his hood flew up and covered his windshield around lap 360 after another car knocked the hood pins out. That cost him one of his two laps.

Collision aside, it was

a good day for Spencer

Despite his collision with race winner Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Spencer had a decent race Sunday, finishing on the lead lap in 11th place.

``We got spun out there with the leader,'' he said. ``It was just a racing deal. He recouped and I recouped and came back and got our lap back. I don't think he wanted to bump me and I sure didn't want to bump him, but when we did bump, we bumped at the right place. It's our best finish this year, believe it or not.''

Mast finishes 36th

Rick Mast's day effectively ended 10 laps into the 500-lap event when his car was slammed in the rear by Chad Little in turn three. He limped through the rest of the race to finish 23 laps down in 36th place.

- BOB ZELLER

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