Pole sitter Mark Martin led the most laps and had the best car. So how did he lose to inconsistent Rusty Wallace? A lousy lug nut by Bruce Newman The Miller 500 at Pocono featured the longest period of flat-out green-flag racing seen so far this season: 387.5 miles without a caution period. Made it tough to go get a beer. (Margin of victory: .30 of a second) Rusty Wallace, Ford, 200 laps at 144.892 mph* Ricky Rudd, Ford, 200 laps Dale Jarrett, Ford, 200 laps Ernie Irvan, Ford, 200 laps Johnny Benson, Pontiac, 200 laps 3 hours, 27 minutes, 3 seconds; 4 flags, 17 laps run under caution Mark Martin 168.410 mph** with point totals (and points earned this weekend) 1 Terry Labonte 2,531 (115) 2 Dale Earnhardt 2,519 (121) 3 Jeff Gordon 2,451 (151) 4 Dale Jarrett 2,374 (170) 5 Ricky Rudd 2,208 (175) *Record (previous record: Alan Kulwicki, 144.023 mph, 1992) **Record (previous record: Rusty Wallace, 164.558 mph, 1994) Coming into the Miller 500 at Pocono, Rusty Wallace stood ninth in the driver point standings, not because he hadn't won races—only Jeff Gordon, with five victories, had more wins than Wallace's three—but because of a record of inconsistency that was remarkable for its consistency. All season Wallace had routinely followed a bad race with a good one. He was 33rd at North Wilkesboro, then won at Martinsville. At Talladega he was 30th, and a week later he finished first on the hilly Sears Point road course. In the June race at Pocono, Wallace finished 31st. A week after that he won at Michigan, only to finish 31st at Daytona. Wallace's hard-charging style occasionally gets him into trouble, but his scrambling victory in this race—after qualifying 13th—seemed to propel him into the chase for the driving championship. The 180 points he earned at Pocono put him in eighth place in the Winston Cup standings, 418 points behind series leader Terry Labonte. "I've had enough time to lose that many points," Wallace said after nosing out Ricky Rudd by three tenths of a second, "so I've got enough time to gain that many." Wallace's victory came as a bitter disappointment to Mark Martin, another driver who had struggled all season. Starting from the pole, Martin led 121 of the race's 200 laps. But a questionable yellow flag ruined Martin's chance for his first victory of the year. During the ensuing pit stops, a lug nut got stuck in the air gun of one of Martin's crewmen, which meant he had to stop again to get the fresh tires needed to finish the race. It was a costly error: Martin came in ninth. "I can't believe how good the car was," said Martin's crew chief, Steve Hmiel. "Rusty couldn't see it all day long." Except at the finish line, where Martin was clearly visible-in Wallace's rearview mirror. It was another day in a tough season for Martin. photograph by George Tiedemann