Jeff Burton and Mark Martin, two old friends and former teammates who long ago convinced each other never to count on anything in NASCAR–especially a championship–now find themselves vying for one.
Burton at 39 and Martin at 47 are first and third, respectively, in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, just 10 points apart, going into the halfway point in the playoffs, Saturday night’s Bank of America 500.
Has the old doomsaying duo even talked about where they find themselves?
“I think you’re insinuating that as Mark retires, I am soon to be crowned the most pessimistic person in motor sports,” Burton deadpanned. “I reluctantly take that banner.”
This is Martin’s final full Nextel Cup season. He plans to drive 22 races next year, moving to a new team, MB2 Motorsports, but this is his last shot at the championship that has eluded him throughout his 20-year career at Roush Racing.
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In their eight seasons as Roush teammates, Martin’s philosophy of treating every win as his last one rubbed off on Burton. Even in his best years, 1999-2000, when he got 10 of his 18 career Cup wins, Burton wouldn’t so much as go out to dinner to celebrate a victory.
Burton left the Roush team in mid-2004 amidst a winless streak that had lasted since late ’01. Even at Richard Childress Racing in a Chevrolet, Burton wouldn’t win until Sept. 24 of this year, at Dover.
Through Burton’s nearly five-year drought, “I didn’t play his Dr. Phil,” Martin said, “but we talked.”
Now that the talking points are all positive, “We have not had a conversation about the situation we’re in,” Burton said.
At Richmond on Sept. 9, when both were unsure of making the 10-driver playoff field, “We both said, `I wish it wasn’t you I was trying to beat tonight,'” Burton said. “The same goes here.”
They both made it, at the expense of 2005 champion Tony Stewart, who missed the cut.
Now each is edging closer to what would be the first Cup championship of his career, although Martin is winless on the season and Burton still has just the one.
“If we were to find a way to beat Mark for [the championship], I would take that as a tremendous compliment,” Burton said. “At the same time, if we weren’t able to do it and Mark was, I would feel really good for him.”
Between them, second in the standings, sits Matt Kenseth, six points behind Burton. Kenseth is a friend of Burton and Martin, and is still Martin’s teammate at Roush. But at 34, Kenseth already has one title under his belt, in 2003.
Martin, who four times has finished second in the standings and 10 times has been in the hunt late in the season, half-expected to be wrecked out of the running at Talladega, Ala., last week in a restrictor-plate race that had long been his nemesis. But he made it through and finished eighth, while Burton wound up 27th with a flat tire.
Still, Martin suppressed any hint at optimism.
“Although I do feel much better at getting Talladega behind us, I still–I’ve done this long enough to know that it’s quite a chore to pull one of these [championships] off,” Martin said.
Kenseth seriously doubts Martin will fall by the wayside.
“Mark has always been very, very, very good at finishing up in the points,” Kenseth said. “He doesn’t do silly things to lose points.”
Martin acknowledged that “we’re in the best position we’ve been in in many, many years,” and in fact, “we’re sitting better than we have been at any other time I can remember.”
Burton is sitting even prettier, and, “I’m happy to see him succeed,” Martin said. “I’m excited that he’s having such a great year.’
And, the pessimistic bond between them aside, Martin allowed a rare ray of long-range optimism about the final race of the Chase, on Nov. 19 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“It would be really awesome,” Martin said, “if it could come down to he and I.”
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