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Daytona Finish wasn't Perfect
Published: 2/21/2007 10:43 AM
Last Modified: 2/21/2007 10:43 AM

Life isn't fair. Neither is racing.
If there were any justice, Mark Martin, not Kevin Harvick, would have won Sunday's Daytona 500.
Instead, Harvick got a tremendous run on the backstretch and then off the final run to catch and just nose ahead of Martin at the finish of the Great American Race.
Martin had been chasing his Daytona for more than two decades.
We would imagine everyone except the folks wearing Shell Racing uniforms were pulling for Martin.
But it wasn't to be.
Like Dale Earnhardt Sr., who suffered so many disappointments and ultimately died at Daytona, Martin has had no luck in the season's opening race. Earnhardt finally won Daytona and one has to wonder if Martin might get another chance.
Martin has gone into semi-retirement so no one really knows what his future in Nextel Cup racing might be. He's tried to retire several times in recent years only to be talked out of it.
Perhaps he will get another shot at Daytona. Perhaps not.
But he is not unlike a great football player that never gets to feel what it is like to win a Super Bowl or a baseball player winning a World Series.
It doesn't make those athletes any less great. It just means the resume has one hole.
So it goes for Martin.



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Klein's Korner

Tulsa World senior sports columnist John Klein is in his fourth decade of covering sports. He started his newspaper career at The Daily Ardmoreite in 1977 and moved to the Tulsa World in 1978. He served 10 years as sports editor for the Tulsa World before being named to his current position in 2005. He also spent five years as the Southwest Conference beat writer for the Houston Post. He has won many writing awards and is a former Oklahoma Sports Writer of the Year.

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