Mark Martin’s heart has become unbreakable, what with all the scar tissue. That is why he seems stoic amid this, his midlife ride back from over the hill and into championship contention.
He has charged in four weeks from 15th in the Nextel Cup standings to 10th, and a tentative playoff berth, going into Saturday night’s final race of the “regular season,” at Richmond, Va.
Just a little luck there and he’s in the hunt for the season title–for the ninth time.
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The other eight times are why there’s so much scar tissue–why he won’t buy into the groundswell notion that his is the most dramatic story of all the high drama the new championship system has produced, including an eight-driver fight at Richmond for the last three playoff berths.
“I’ve had my heart broken plenty of times in this business,” Martin said this week. “Things seem to have a way of not working out for me. [This weekend], we go do our job, everything goes our way, and we’ll have something to talk about Saturday night.”
But until and unless . . . no bright projections, no great expectations. Please.
The numbers, dramatic as they are, do not nearly tell the story. Four times he has finished second in the standings, and four times third. Between the lines are the brutal beatings his spirit has taken.
The first time was in 1990. Even at 31, Martin was making a comeback of sorts, having disappeared virtually from NASCAR for four years before owner Jack Roush signed him in 1988 and having gained control over the alcohol abuse of his youth. He was neck and neck for the championship before losing to Dale Earnhardt, to whom he also finished second in 1994.
In ’98 he finished second to Jeff Gordon. In 2002 he battled Tony Stewart into the last race, even though NASCAR controversially penalized Martin 25 points because of an illegal spring found on his car a few weeks earlier.
In ’89, ’93, ’97 and ’99, he finished third.
So many times. So close. So much heartbreak.
So you can see why, when his charge began in earnest with a strong second-place finish at Michigan on Aug. 22, Martin sharply cut off the very first question about his past:
“You know I never look back,” he snapped, smiling but firm.
All right then, looking forward, it surely seemed Martin’s planets were aligning at last. Could his team, which had a rocky early season and would have been completely out of the championship hunt under the old system, be peaking just in time to take advantage of the new playoff format?
“Please don’t drag me into all that,” he pleaded. “You know I can’t stand over-optimistic people.”
Topsy-turvy
To get some idea of how wild the swirl, how drastic the swings, could be for the final playoff berths at Richmond, consider that at California Speedway last week, Kevin Harvick plummeted from eighth to 15th in the standings.
And that was on a relatively sane, wide, 2-mile track. Little three-quarter-mile Richmond is but a tick less treacherous than notorious Bristol or Martinsville when it comes to short-track chaos and constant vulnerability to wrecks.
The top five drivers in the standings have clinched spots in the “Chase for the Nextel Cup”–Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth. Sixth-place Elliott Sadler can clinch by starting the race Saturday night and seventh-place Kurt Busch needs only to finish a little better than dead last to clinch.
After that, it’s all up in the air among current positions eight through 15: Ryan Newman, rookie Kasey Kahne, Martin, Jamie McMurray (25 points out of 10th), Bobby Labonte (-36), Dale Jarrett (-43), Jeremy Mayfield (-55) and Harvick (-56).