On The Mark!

   Hooray for Mark Martin!
   The best NASCAR news I've heard in quite some time is that Martin, the affable, popular driver who grew up in Arkansas, will return to the Sprint Cup Series for a full season in 2009.
   In replacing Casey Mears at Hendrick Motorsports next year, Martin, who'll be 50 on Jan. 9, will be going for a chmpionship that has eluded him in a career dating to 1981, sometimes very cruelly.
   He has been the runnerup for the title four times--1990, '94, '98 and 2002.
   The worst of these disappointments came in 1990, when Martin and his Jack Roush-owned team finished second in the standings to Dale Earnhardt and Richard Childress Racing by 26 points.
   The differenece was a 46-point penalty Martin , the winner that day, incurred at Richmond on Feb.25 in a NASCAR decision that still is disputed even today.  Martin didn't learn of the big points-takeway until arriving home near Greensboro, N.C.
   The rules violation involved what Roush called a "gray area" involving a caburetor spacer plate.
   "This could be devastating to us," predicted Martin.  And, of course, it eventually proved to be, along with an ill-conceived late pit stop for tires in the year-'s next-to-last race a Phoenix.      

   In 2006 Martin indicated plans to retire from NASCAR's top series.  Pundits hailed him as the greatest driver never to take a title.  However, he returned to run 25 in  races in 2007 for the Dale Earnhardt Incoporated/Bobby Ginn team and is running a limited schedule for the Earnhardt operation this season.
   Rick Hendrick, a long-time admirer of Martin (who isn't?) wants the genial guy to get another chance and is going to give that opportunity to him.
   Can Martin hold up to the rigors of a long, tough schedule?
   He probably more able to do so than any driver on the big-time tour.  For  years Martin has been a physical fitness devotee and is in far superior condition to competitors half his age.
   Martin lists 35 major NASCAR victories and 41 poles.  He holds a record 47 Nationwide Tour (formerly the Busch Series) triumphs and won the International Race Of Champions title a record five times.
   I remember the first time that many of us in the southern motorsports media ever saw Mark Martin.  It was in the late 1980s and he came down to run a race at N.C. Motor Speedway near Rockingham.  It was a bitterly cold day during qualifying  for the Busch event and Martin led time trials the pole.  We press guys, being creatures of comfort, asked that Martin be brought to the press box rather than us going to him.
   We were stunned when this lad of about 5-5 or 5-6 walked in.  Mark was around 17 or 18 at the time, but looked like he ought to be in about the fifth grade. 
   He was exceedingly polite, a trait that was to prove a Hallmark of his career.  Also, he was a tad shy.
  Jack Roush made Mark his driver when he came to NASCAR in 1981 for five races, then gave him the ride fulltime in 1988 and for almost the next two decades they produced some magical, memorable moments togeher.
   Among the best recollections for me is Mark's interview in the infield press center at Daytona International Speedway after the won the pole for the 1989 Pepsi 400.  He  talked for about 2 1/2 hours, or almost long as it would take to run the 400-mile race.
   Essentially, Mark told the life's story of how he got into racing.  It's an intriguing tale.
   Here are the highlights:
   --I can remember being about five years old, standing on my daddy's lap, steering his car and running about 80 miles and hour.  We'd head toward those wooden one-lane bridges they had back home at the time and I'd scream, 'You take it!  You take it!'  And he'd say, 'You keep it or we're going to wreck!'.  He loved to see me get scared.  He got a kick out of that."
   --"It was aout 100 miles to Memphis from my hometown, Batesville, and about 125 miles to Little Rock.  I can remember my dad, Julian,  making those trips in a little over an hour on two-lane winding roads.  It always was a big thrill to go."
   --"There no ABC stores, or liquor stores, in our county.  To get alcohol you had to go to a store about 25 miles away.  I loved to pile in the car with my dad and his buddies to go anytime they needed something.  They'd always find a drag race before the night was over."
   --"As fast as dad and his friends drove, they were concious of wrecking.  Whenever there was a fatal accident in the area, he'd take me to the scene where it had happened and tell me things like, 'He had two tires over the edge here and over-corrected too quickly.'  But he never, never said that whoever it was that wrecked was going too fast.
   --"Back where I grew up was like the Wild, Wild West.  There was a lot of lawlessness.  People did what they wanted to, especially while driving.  There wasn't a highway patrolman every 100 square miles.  I'm not picking on Arkansas.  That's just the way it was."
   In 1973 Julian Martin took his son to the Daytona 500.
   "It was an incredible experience for me," continued Martin.  "It just overwhelmed both my dad and me.  Before then we weren't even stock car racing fans, but when we got back home my dad starting building a race car for me.  It was a '55 Chevrolet six-cylinder that we planned to run in the street class on the area short tracks.  The roll bars were made out of heavy water pipe."
   Mark started racing in '74 and was so boyish in appearance that he had a tough time even getting into the garage area at some tracks.  In '75 he won a dozen feature races and the Arkansas state championship in his class.
   A career had begun that was to lead to four American Speed Assoication titles and fame in NASCAR's major league, where he's known as the ultimate "clean" driver and a consommate pro who never harshly is critical of rivals.
   I know that journalists ideally are supposed to be neutral in whatever they cover.  But in the case of Mark Martin, how can you NOT pull for him in 2009!?
   Mark lost his father, Julian, in the crash of a private plane in Nevada on Aug. 18, 1998.   Perhaps, if Mark drives that Hendrick car to title, in some way he 'll relatively be standing on his dad's lap when he takes the decisive checkered flag.