The weekend’s opening practice session for the Sprint Cup Series is in the books at the Texas Motor Speedway and Mark Martin has set the early pace.  Running a fast lap of 28.467 seconds at a speed of 189.693 mph, Martin put his No. 5 Cheez-It/CARQUEST Chevrolet solidly atop the leaderboard.

Continuing to show his strength early into the 2009 season, David Reutimann was second fastest in the opening session with a lap of 28.488 seconds at 189.553 mph.  Just six races into the season, Reutimann – who in the past fought to stay in the top-35 – is sixth in the series standings and looking for more.

Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle and last week’s winner Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top-5, while defending race winner Carl Edwards was seventh-quick.

The Cup cars are set to qualify later in the afternoon for Sunday’s Samsung 500.  Be sure to check back to HardcoreRaceFans.com for all of the latest news and results from Texas all weekend long.

For a complete run-down of the session, head over to This Week's Races at: http://hardcoreracefans.com/component/hcrf/?task=twr.