September 28, 2009
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
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Mark Martin is in the midst of the best season he’s had in a long time. With a series leading five victories, can the veteran driver finally break though and win his first championship?
Much has been made in the media recently about Martin being over fifty years old, yet Martin is proving that for him at least, age is nothing but a number. The trend in the Cup series recently has been toward younger drivers, yet Martin is bucking the trend.
He began the season struggling, but with the help of his crew chief Alan Gustafson, has succeeded in turning his season around for the better. He started the Chase as the points leader based on his four wins leading into it, and then kicked the Chase off in strong fashion by winning the first race and thereby extending his points lead.
When he signed with Hendrick Motorsports at the end of last season, he originally agreed to run a full schedule this year and a part time schedule next season. Martin is having so much fun that he’s already agreed to run full time next year and part time the season after.
Four years ago, he announced his semi-retirement from the sport by scaling back to running a partial schedule. Then, opportunity came knocking in the form of Rick Hendrick, who offered the veteran driver a ride in the 5 car. It seemed at one point that Martin was burned out on the sport, but now he’s living the high life. He felt pretty confident about his racing desire during the announcement of his contract extension.
“I hope that I'll be able to do the job, and I'm having a blast. I understand that it works better for sponsor commitments and those kinds of things,” Martin was quoted as saying in David Caraviello article on nascar.com. “And so I'm pretty comfortable. There's no place I'd rather be today than at the race track. I didn't always feel that way. And so I did something about it. And now I feel that way. So now I'm doing something about that.”
Mark Martin is certainly the sentimental fan favorite to win the Championship. He’s managed to finish second in the Championship standings four times during his illustrious career, but has never managed to close the deal and win a Championship. In an era when most drivers’ careers are measured by the number of Championships they’ve won, it would indeed be a shame if Martin finished his career without one. However, Martin has competed at a high level in NASCAR for a long time; not winning a Championship would certainly not diminish his accomplishments by any means.
The new point format has definitely played to Martin’s advantage this season. Despite leading the series with five wins, if it were not for the Chase, Martin would most likely find himself outside the top ten in points, due mostly to the hole that he dug for himself at the beginning of the year. Martin fell to as low as 34th in the points and climbed his way back to qualify for the Chase.
Martin has begun NASCAR’s post season in the right fashion. If he and his team can hold it together for the remainder of the year, then hopefully, Martin can finally close the deal and win his first well deserved Championship.
If you would like to learn more about Matthew, please check out his web site at matthew-pizzolato.com.
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