[media-credit name=”David Yeazell” align=”alignright” width=”276″]
[/media-credit]Ricky Stenhouse Jr. held off veteran driver Mark Martin by 4.785 seconds to win Saturday’s Nationwide Series Sam’s Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Stenhouse Jr. led the final 54 laps in route to his first victory of the season.
“It was really cool. Looking at all the fans in the stands that came out was pretty cool before the race and to win here was fun. I got here Sunday, so I’ve been here a while and it paid off.” Stenhouse Jr. said.
Martin, making his first Nationwide Series race for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 18 Toyota led 44 laps and finished second.
“That was one serious beatdown he put on me that last run. I mean just a beatdown. I kept up with for a while and about wrecked five times, and that’s it. I’m not ashamed to say, it wasn’t even close.” Martin said. “Thanks to Joe Gibbs and everybody at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) and Interstate Batteries. This Toyota was awesome and they were awesome. I needed to run a race to see if I could find a few things that maybe we could work on to improve.”
Polesitter and series points leader Elliott Sadler finished third after pitting for a vibration problem.
“We showed a lot of guts and effort today. We had a good race car and anytime you can go through what we did today and get a third-place finish, we’ve very happy with that.” Sadler said.
Sadler has a 15 point lead in the series standings over Austin Dillon.
Trevor Bayne finished fourth and Brendan Gaughan finished fifth.
“It’s good when you can say a top five is disappointing. We want to be in Victory Lane every week and there for a while I thought we had a shot at it. We just got too tight at the end when the sun went down, so it’s a decent run.” Bayne said.
| Unofficial Race Results | |||||
| Sam’s Town 300, Las Vegas Motor Speedway | |||||
| http://www.speedwaymedia.com/Cup/race.php?race=3 | |||||
| ========================================= | |||||
| Pos. | St. | No. | Driver | Make | Points |
| ========================================= | |||||
| 1 | – | 6 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Ford | 48 |
| 2 | – | 18 | Mark Martin | Toyota | 0 |
| 3 | – | 2 | Elliott Sadler | Chevrolet | 42 |
| 4 | – | 60 | Trevor Bayne | Ford | 40 |
| 5 | – | 33 | Brendan Gaughan | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 6 | – | 88 | Cole Whitt * | Chevrolet | 38 |
| 7 | – | 3 | Austin Dillon * | Chevrolet | 37 |
| 8 | – | 31 | Justin Allgaier | Chevrolet | 36 |
| 9 | – | 12 | Sam Hornish Jr. | Dodge | 35 |
| 10 | – | 38 | Kasey Kahne | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 11 | – | 9 | Kenny Wallace | Toyota | 33 |
| 12 | – | 7 | Danica Patrick | Chevrolet | 32 |
| 13 | – | 43 | Michael Annett | Ford | 31 |
| 14 | – | 30 | James Buescher | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 15 | – | 44 | Mike Bliss | Toyota | 29 |
| 16 | – | 19 | Tayler Malsam | Toyota | 28 |
| 17 | – | 1 | Mike Wallace | Chevrolet | 28 |
| 18 | – | 41 | Blake Koch | Ford | 26 |
| 19 | – | 70 | Johanna Long * | Chevrolet | 25 |
| 20 | – | 87 | Joe Nemechek | Toyota | 24 |
| 21 | – | 51 | Jeremy Clements | Chevrolet | 23 |
| 22 | – | 89 | Morgan Shepherd | Chevrolet | 22 |
| 23 | – | 22 | Brad Keselowski | Dodge | 0 |
| 24 | – | 23 | Robert Richardson Jr. | Chevrolet | 20 |
| 25 | – | 14 | Eric McClure | Toyota | 19 |
| 26 | – | 4 | Daryl Harr | Chevrolet | 18 |
| 27 | – | 81 | Jason Bowles * | Toyota | 17 |
| 28 | – | 108 | Kyle Fowler | Ford | 16 |
| 29 | – | 52 | Tim Schendel | Chevrolet | 15 |
| 30 | – | 124 | Benny Gordon | Chevrolet | 14 |
| 31 | – | 50 | T.J. Bell | Ford | 13 |
| 32 | – | 28 | Derrike Cope | Dodge | 12 |
| 33 | – | 54 | Kyle Busch | Toyota | 0 |
| 34 | – | 11 | Brian Scott | Toyota | 11 |
| 35 | – | 40 | Erik Darnell | Chevrolet | 9 |
| 36 | – | 113 | Jennifer Jo Cobb | Dodge | 0 |
| 37 | – | 39 | Joey Gase * | Ford | 7 |
| 38 | – | 27 | J.J. Yeley | Ford | 0 |
| 39 | – | 46 | Chase Miller | Chevrolet | 5 |
| 40 | – | 10 | Jeff Green | Toyota | 4 |
| 41 | – | 42 | Josh Wise | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 42 | – | 47 | Scott Speed | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 43 | – | 174 | Mike Harmon | Chevrolet | 1 |
