By Ron Felix
 
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The wall beat a lot of drivers at one of the toughest tracks on the circuit, the race featured and was slowed by a record setting seventeen caution flags for a total of 73 laps.
The last time there was a Southern 500 at Darlington, Terry Labonte was the winner in the No. 5 that Martin now drives.
"Isn't that sweet. That is so great. Go 5!" -- Martin said.
50 year-old Mark Martin, low on fuel but high on enthusiasm, held off a hard charging teammate Jimmie Johnson, to win his second race of the season and earned his second victory at the famous "Lady In Black, The Track Too Tough To Tame". He also won the Southern 500 in 1993 driving for Jack Roush.
"This is unbelievable. Just absolutely unbelievable. You know I've got such a great race team. This was a big surprise. We had a strong car but I never expected to win," said Martin. "Alan Gustafson (crew chief) is absolutely the best. I may have been his childhood hero. I'm living a second childhood now and he's my childhood hero."
It was Martin's 37th win in 733 career starts. Martin simply said to his crew, on the radio -- "Thank you guys, thank you".
Martin jumped from 15th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points to 11th.
Johnson put in a good day's work behind the wheel.
"Man, that was like a 1000-mile race for us," said Johnson. "We got caught up in a bunch of different things on the track. Got spun out trying to get into my pit stall one time. Passed a lot of cars all night long. We finally got the track position at the end. We knew we had a good car and could take advantage of that there. My hat's off to Mark Martin and that whole No. 5 team. We're running as hard as we could and just kind of matching pace. We had to go into fuel conservation mode after that -- but 50 years old and he drives his butt off. I'm proud him."
Tony Stewart finished third with his teammate Ryan Newman on his bumper in fourth spot.
"Yeah, that's the best I've run in the Southern 500 so I'm ecstatic about it," Stewart said.
Jeff Gordon, after battling back from a lap down was fifth.
"Man we just had so many things we had to overcome at Darlington because its a long race you can overcome a lot but those guys played the strategy right there at the end and I really thought those two tires were going to work for me and Tony (Stewart)," Gordon said. "They did for a short period of time then the car just stopped. Great job to Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson, they were putting on a heck of a battle up there. I had a lot of fun with Ryan Newman trying to get by him there at the end. It was a great effort for Hendrick Motorsports. If you look at Brad Keselowski and all the guys at Hendrick they did an amazing job. That was one hard fifth-place finish."
Martin Truex Jr. finished sixth followed by Brad Keselowski, Greg Biffle, rookie Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth to round out the top ten.
Biffle lead the most laps (117) but wound up on the short end of a stick. He lost a spring rubber on lap 82, and on lap 283, ran over teammate Carl Edwards. He also spun out on lap 295. Biffle was queried about the contact with Edwards after the race.
“I’d have to look at the replay. Maybe I bumped him, but I really don’t think so," Biffle said. "He cut down the hill. He knew I was inside of him and that happens, but I think just the air off my bumper got him loose, but I’ll have to look at the replay. I don’t know. It sure didn’t feel like I touched him, but it’s perfectly possible.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues his slide to oblivion, he has finished 20th or worse in four of the last five races.
"It was a frustrating night for the Mountain Dew/National Guard team. We struggled with tight all night. I'm looking forward to the All-Star race. It should be fun," Earnhardt said.
Rookie Joey Logano scored a ninth-place finish, his second top-10 of the 2009 season and equaled his best effort in 14 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. Logano captured top Raybestos Rookie honors for the eighth time in 11 races this season. Unofficially Logano leads Scott Speed by 12 points (112-110) in the Raybestos Rookie standings.
"We were good. Everything we did and kept working on it throughout the race," said Logano. "I was trying to save the right side as much as I can. Learned a lot of things that will help me set up my car that I found in my race car that I didn’t like. I learned a lot. I was happy with that. We led a lot of laps. I thought that was cool, leading Darlington. Coming into this place, this was the one place I thought I was going to stink horribly. I thought I was going to be worse than we were at Texas this year. I was happy. We qualified good. We ran top-10 all day, top-five for a while. Just too tight, so aero-dependant. It showed when I got out front: I was see ya. It is what it is. I’ll take a top-10. Realistically the way I look at it that’s our first top-10. Talladega doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s a top-10, yeah, but it’s Talladega. This is a hard earned top-10. No luck played into it. It’s where we ran, where we deserved to run and it great for these guys. It’s huge.”
Logano became the first Raybestos Rookie to score a top-10 at Darlington since Denny Hamlin placed 10th in 2006.
The next (points paying) race on the Sprint Cup schedule – the 12th event of 36-races for the 2009 Sprint Cup Championship. The Coca-Cola 600 will be on Saturday May 24th, at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. The race begins at approximately 5:00 p.m. eastern time with live, high-definition coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 4:30 p.m. eastern time.
The race will also be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128 and PRN radio.
There were 23 lead changes among 13 different drivers.
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