BY TEAM FORD RACING CORRESPONDENT

Homestead, Fla. — Elliott Sadler did the Ford Motor Company Executives, who made the trek to Homestead from Detroit, proud when he posted the fastest speed in the final Happy Hour session of the 2002 season in the company car. The car, more commonly known as the Motorcraft Ford, ran a 36.320 second lap at 148.678 mph.

Others joining the Ford car charge in the Top 10 were Kurt Busch (third fastest), Jeff Burton (fourth fastest), Dave Blaney (seventh fastest), Mark Martin (eighth fastest) and Todd Bodine (10th fastest).

With all eyes focused on the points battle between Martin and Tony Stewart, who practiced fifth fastest in the final session, the chances of a Martin championship come down to something wrong happening to Stewart to prevent him from running 22nd in the points.

"Well, we're not good enough, not as good as we'd like to be, but that's not much different than what you get from me every week,” said Martin rather flatly. “We may make a change or two, but they'll be minor. We turned some decent laps. We have a car that will be good on the long runs. Unfortunately, if we get long runs and not many cautions, with where I'm starting, it's not gonna play out too well.

“But we've got the same kind of car that we have most of the time, which is a long haul setup,” continued Martin. “The car doesn't start off as fast as the fast cars, but it finishes off faster than most. It would be a tremendous advantage to us if we were starting in the Top 10, but we didn't pull that off yesterday. We made some setup choices that didn't agree with the blazing sun and we went out early in the blazing sun, so will do what we can from the 34th starting position. We tried a couple different combinations during the happy hours and all of them seemed to work the same - not good enough - but on the long run they'll be better than most."

Martin’s comment drew a raised eyebrow and comment from Stewart.

“Most of the time when he [Martin] says he’s not as happy as he wants to be, that’s when he goes out there and gives us a royal beating for 400 miles,” joked Stewart in a press session where both drivers appeared shoulder to shoulder.

"I just want to thank, not only the race fans, but the competitors and so many people that have come out of the woodwork over the past six months, five months, when we really had a shot at this thing and as we got closer and closer to the end of it,” Martin commented in a melancholy tone. “It's meant a lot to me to see the people almost look like they wanted it even worse than I did. One of my greatest fears was the fear of letting those people down because I can handle it.

“But it meant a lot and it means that over the past 15 years that I've managed to earn a lot of respect and, after last year, that really means a lot because I didn't feel like I had as much as I do now,” continued Martin. “I want to thank all those people for their support and, for them, showing that kind of respect. And I definitely want to thank my race team. After last year, this has been sweet. I have great hopes for next year based on the things that have happened this year.

“The way we ran the last two weeks has been real special to me. Tony is a real hard guy to beat on the race track, but we've had cars that could contend to win the last two weeks in a row and that's not easy. So, we've battled that number down to where it made it exciting for you guys [the media] and the fans.

“Hopefully, we can continue going in that direction, but it's a tall order for tomorrow."

WELLS TROUBLES?
Widespread garage reports tell TFR that Cal Wells’ choice for crew chief of the No. 32 is ready to leave the team. You may recall that within the past two weeks that Wells indicated that he was going to swap current lead wrench Mike Beam with team engineer Roy McCauley. That plan appears to have taken on a shaky path now that McCauley is in play for another job in the garage.

DODGE TRUCK TEST
The Dodge trucks will have a two day test at Talladega Superspeedway. The test, which will take place on Dec. 16th and 17th, will allow the Dodge truck teams to see where their “freshened” Ram truck falls after changes were made for the 2003 season.