Martin left the powerhouse Roush team because he wanted to ease his way into retirement, and he got the opportunity to do it with a partial schedule at Ginn Racing — a second-tier team bought last year by a Florida land developer trying to satisfy his love of NASCAR.

The decision was questioned by those who wondered if Bobby Ginn could give the ultra-competitive Martin cars capable of winning.

Boy, did he ever.

“I haven’t even seen the finish. It is what it is,” Martin said. “We were inches or feet or whatever. We were short. It was so close, but it was second. I let it slip away, slip through my fingers, and I’m fine with that. I am very proud of what this team did for me this weekend.”

Martin led 26 laps and was out front when a five-car accident brought racing to a standstill with five laps to go. It made for an agonizing 11 minutes, 39 seconds for Martin, who sat idly in his car trying to plot his strategy during the stoppage.

When racing resumed with two laps to go, Martin seemingly needed only to hold off Busch in a sprint to the finish. He weaved high and then low to block Busch’s attempts, which may have briefly distracted him from Harvick.

Before the frantic finish, the race was shaping up to be a fight between Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch, who combined to lead 130 of the 200 laps. But they wrecked each other while leading the race with 48 laps to go.

Stewart was leading coming out of the fourth turn when his Chevrolet wiggled just a bit. Busch, closing fast, couldn’t avoid running into Stewart’s bumper, and both cars careened into the outside wall.

Busch, who led 95 laps in his bid to give car owner Roger Penske his first Daytona 500 win, was heartbroken.

“We both got taken out of the Daytona 500 on my mistake,” he said from inside his car. “I made the first mistake. I apologize to (Stewart), but I know that doesn’t mean anything now.”

Stewart, who led early but dropped to the back of the field after a pit road miscue, led 35 laps and just had surged back to the front when he wrecked.

It dropped Stewart to 0-for-9 in Daytona 500s, a streak he was determined to snap when he reported to Speedweeks intent on adding the race to his impressive resume. After winning the Budweiser Shootout exhibition race and a qualifying event Thursday, Stewart had established himself as the favorite and said he’d trade all 11 of his Daytona victories to just win the 500 once.

It appeared to be his race to lose, and he knew it — saying on pit road before the start “this is the best chance I’ve ever had, the best car I’ve ever had.”

He was surprisingly calm and collected after wrecking.

“It just wasn’t meant to be today,” he said with a smile. “I’m still disappointed, but we’ve got a lot to be proud of. We had an awesome Speedweeks.”

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