Kenny Martin Takes King of Dirt Pro-Stock Victory at Albany-Saratoga
Story and Photos By: MATT NOLES / RACERSGUIDE.COM
MALTA, NY- June 3, 2017- When it comes to racing, more often than not, patience is the key to success.
Few understand that aforementioned statement better – or practice that character trait finer – than veteran pro-stock competitor Kenny Martin.
When Rob Hazer’s King of Dirt pro-stock series rolled into the Albany-Saratoga Speedway in Malta, New York on Friday night, the driver of the infamous No. 93 knew that the task ahead of him was going to be difficult to say the least. Yet from the results of his performances in the opening weeks of the season, few had any doubts that he would be in contention, if not victorious, by the end of the evening.
Martin, who already had one victory at the famed Saratoga county oval thus far in 2017, unloaded fast from the onset of the evening and after a convincing win in his qualifier earlier in the night, he put all of his contemporaries on notice in short order that he was back in top form after missing a portion of last year’s schedule due to health issues.
After spending the first half of the main event waiting to make his presence known, Martin seized the opportunity he was looking for during two mid-race restarts to drive from his eighth starting position past the dueling trio of Robbie Speed, Rob Yetman and Luke Horning on his way to victory in the 30-lap feature. To say he was elated in victory lane is an understatement at best.
“We started towards the front tonight and that always helps,” Martin said after his victory Friday night. “If you start mid-pack, generally you can work your way forward here by being patient and that’s what we did for a little while and it worked out to our benefit tonight.”
Though patience and talent are undoubtedly a prerequisite for reaching victory lane, those two items will only go so far; more often than not, some manner of luck needs to be involved to complete the equation. For the 2015 Albany-Saratoga Speedway track champion, what may have been misfortune for others quickly turned into good fortune in the form of two consecutive restarts at the halfway point of the event.
“Those cautions set us up in a nice position,” Martin explained. “I was having a problem getting around a slower car and he ended up restarting on the outside of me and after that, I just had to get myself into the right positions at the right time. I thought it was a good race for the fans.”
After passing the trio of Speed, Yetman and Horning, Martin’s experience prevented him from relinquishing the lead for the remainder of the event. “I’ve been driving for many, many years and if you lose your cool, you lose the race,” He continued. “I just kept myself as calm as I could and I picked my lines as best as I could. I thought we had a good enough car tonight to keep everyone covered so I wasn’t really worried about anyone else, I was just worried about myself.”
With his second victory of the season, Kenny Martin has shown rather convincingly that he is without a doubt on the short list of drivers to beat weekly at the ‘Great Race Place.’ “We just showed everyone what we can do,” He said. “I’m not too concerned about any other drivers right now. There is some good competition here and when you race against someone like Robbie [Speed], you end up bringing out the best in each other. All I’m looking for are good races at the end and I think we did that tonight.”
With the season entering the month of June, points are starting to add up as the title chase heads into the summer months and though some drivers may think that it’s too early to pay attention to the weekly standings, Martin understands that you can’t turn a blind eye to point totals and you certainly can’t pretend that they only exist when it’s convenient.
“It’s never too early to starting paying attention to the point standings,” concluded Martin. “Last year I had to take time off because I had back surgery and for me to come back this year and be on top of my game again makes me feel like I’m defending my title from 2015 that I couldn’t last season. I’m trying to defend that title because last year, I was robbed of that chance.”
Matt Noles is a contributing writer for Racer’s Guide and Dirt Track Digest. He currently resides in Sprakers, New York and can be reached via e-mail at matt_noles@yahoo.com.
