Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 AAA Ford
Fusion, is coming off a fourth-place finish in last year’s NASCAR NEXTEL
Cup Series points race. Martin held a Q&A session in the Daytona
International Speedway infield media center on his first day of testing
for next month’s Daytona 500.
IS THIS YOUR LAST DAYTONA 500? “I hope this is the last one.”
WHAT ABOUT YOUR CHANCES? “Isn’t it a little bit early to be worried about
all that? (laughter) I don’t know. It’s awfully early to be worrying about
all of that. I’ve got so many things on my mind. There is a lot of stuff
going on. I’m just gonna try to keep my head down and work real hard and
make my team happy, make AAA happy and make some fans happy this year and
work at it.”
CARL CITED YOU IN HIS BANQUET SPEECH. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT EXPECTATIONS FOR
HIM? “You know me. I’m wouldn’t do the expectation deal too much. I would
expect great enthusiasm and incredible intensity. That’s what I would
expect and I guarantee you you’ll get that. I don’t want to go into great
detail. Carl and I did actually get crossways with one another a couple of
times last year along the way in his development and that’s OK. We both
learned a little something through all that. At the time we had different
philosophies on a few things and I respect that. He certainly respects me,
so that’s just part of moving along. Carl has worked harder, he’s paid
more attention than any driver that I’ve ever had contact with. Carl
Edwards is paying attention, that’s for sure. He’s asked more questions
than anyone ever has of me and there were a couple of times when he didn’t
get praise from me. Most of the time he does, but he’s a lot of fun to be
around and be a part of certainly.”
WHEN DID YOU FINALLY ALLOW YOURSELF TO THINK ABOUT 2006? “I’m not sure I’m
thinking about it yet. I was totally blindsided with my chances of winning
the Daytona 500. I really haven’t thought that much about it. Definitely
at the banquet I still wasn’t ready for that. My month of December was the
busiest I’ve had in my life and a lot of that is because of all the things
that weren’t able to happen, that I wasn’t able to do the last three
months of the season based on the focus and effort that went into the
chase, trying to catch up on that and get in the swing of some new
sponsors. AAA, Coca-Cola, for example, were totally new to my program so
that took a little additional time and what have you and here we are. I’m
doing a lot of stuff right now. I’ve got a lot on my mind. I don’t have a
lot of control about Daytona. This is not like California. Our California
cars haven’t been to the wind tunnel yet. After they get done with the
wind tunnel I’ll look at the numbers and start wrestling with the guys
about why we weren’t able to do what we hoped we would or be excited that
we did more than we thought we might under the new scenarios that we have
to deal with for ’06. Then we’ll go to Vegas and test and I’ll be as
fierce as I’ve ever been in my life about trying to win the next race. But
for Daytona I’m at the mercy of the engineers and the team and all those
things. I don’t really feel like I have a lot of input on the performance
of the car, so I’m letting them do their work and staying out of it.”
THOUGHTS ON RUNNING SOME TRUCK AND BUSCH RACES AS WELL. “The truck is
something that I really want to do. I was out here Friday with the 6 truck
and with my team and with David Ragan. I tested the truck and I drafted
and we worked really hard on getting the truck set up to really drive well
for David to race in the race here, and then I’ll be in it at California.
It’s something that I have a lot of passion for right now. That’s why I’m
doing that. I’ve put a lot of extra work on my plate and then it was not
my intention to do Busch races, but because Roush Racing put together a
package with Ameriquest to do an enormous amount of racing in the Busch
Series, I was put in a position where they know I won’t say no, but I did
argue down from 14 to seven races in the Busch Series. So I’m definitely
not doing a full Busch Series schedule. I’m not Carl Edwards. I’m not that
strong. I’ve got a couple of years on him, or some of these other guys
that are really taking a full plate. I’m talking about 14 races and that’s
manageable. I’d say I can do that. I’m real excited about the truck and
working with my team and working with David Ragan and getting that thing
going as a kick start for 2007, where I can go do that full time and just
have some big fun.”
HAVE YOU FOUND THAT PLACE AS FAR AS WHAT IT’S GOING TO TAKE TO GET THROUGH
THIS YEAR? “To be real honest with you, I’ve still got some time and thank
goodness because like I said when we were in New York I wasn’t really
ready to address it yet. Obviously, I’ve been to a Cup test already this
year, a truck test already this year and now we’re at Daytona and just on
the first day. When we get Daytona out of the way, because I can’t help
those guys that much, and we start focusing on Vegas and then looking at
California. I have the ferocity to build, but to be real honest with you
I’m not there yet. I have been real busy. This December was the busiest
I’ve ever been and I have been real busy to this point. I’m doing some
things with Matt. I got to go racing with him twice since Homestead and
he’s really impressed me, and it’s time for me to move his equipment up
and make some changes. He raced last Saturday night at New Smyrna in the
sportsman division for the first time and he wound up getting the win
there, so we’re moving right on through that division and into the late
model division. Equipment-wise, I wasn’t prepared for that so I’m trying
to help my guys do those kind of things and trying to get everything in
order so that when the mad dash hits of Speedweeks there’s nothing else in
my life but the Cup cars. Obviously, there is a lot of things in it right
now and we’ll kind of make that transition as we get closer to Speedweeks
with the Vegas test and everything.”
IS IT POSSIBLE TO JUST HAVE FUN THIS YEAR AND CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR TEAM
PERSONNEL? “I tell you what, I had fun last year, which was really cool.
It was the best year of my life professionally and personally, so I just
want everybody to make sure that they know that they’re talking to a guy
that had a blast last year. It would mean an awful lot to me to have the
same kind of performance on the race track this year, so therefore I’m
willing to be miserable if need be in order to have that. My tendency is
to go off on that misery side to try to make sure that we get that
performance. I’m gonna fight that a little bit, but I’m not ready to
address all that strategy just yet. I’ve got a lot of balls in the air.
Jack has a strategy that says, ‘don’t worry about it. I know you. Just go
have fun with it this year. The pressure is off and you might do better
than you ever have.’ Boy, that sounds real good to me, but we all know
that I’m gonna fall over that misery edge as soon as I get close enough to
it that I can jump over it. I’ll work so hard at it that we’ll go back to
the other side. It’s really funny. I’m really gonna make an effort this
year to handle things the way I did last year with the philosophy I had,
with the fans, with the media and with my team. It will be a
disappointment to me if we don’t have – I would really love the 2005
performance to be the last year of my Cup – so if I could do that well
again in ’06, it would be fantastic. If I could do better than that,
obviously it would be a dream come true. It would be incredible. If we
could race for that championship and win it would be the coolest thing. At
the same time, realistically speaking, I know the odds that I’m up against
and I can’t believe that I was able to personally give the performance
that I gave on the race track last year. It would be hard for me to ask
more of myself at this stage of my career, but you’re not gonna get the
Jack Roush philosophy recommendation from me, and that is, ‘don’t sweat
it, don’t strain so hard, just go do it and see if it turns out.’ Doggone
it, that’s a good strategy. I wish that would work for me, but I love what
happened the last lap of Homestead. It’s one of the few occasions where
I’ve ever gotten beat that I had fun. Yeah, it would have been cool to
win, but everybody was on their feet and that’s why I race. If I could
have times in 2006 and some races like that, it would really fill in that
last box for me because 2006 is the last Cup box for me and I’d like to
fill that in with great times like we had in 2005.”
WHAT ABOUT YOUR TEAM? “We really didn’t lose any people. We only lost one
person off the 6 team, but we promoted a couple of other guys within the
company and it was time for them to move up and take on crew chief
responsibilities on Busch teams because of Roush’s expansion with
Ameriquest and all the Busch teams they’re gonna have this year. So we
have a couple of new people in there, but you have that almost every year.
I do still have Pat Tryson. I still have our engineer, Mike Janow. I still
have my car chief, which is very important to me. Todd Zeigler is
incredible and I would have had a hard time facing 2006 without Todd, but
he’s back with us. And some of the other guys that are on our team I’ve
worked with on my Busch car in ’05, so we’ve worked together before. I’m
feeling good about the team. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have as
good a year as last year. There’s no reason. I mean we’ve got it all. If
anything, we’ve improved on things and I’ll certainly drive my heart out
and these guys will have my undivided attention when it comes time to get
ready for these races and to focus and to go racing. But at the same time
I’m gonna try to have some fun with the media and with the fans and the
people that have helped me build this great career. I’ve got some really
fun things on the schedule coming up in ’06 that are outside the race car
itself that will involve the fans especially as well as some of the media
stuff.”
WHAT WILL YOU MISS THE MOST AFTER YOUR FINAL LAP? “It’s not my final lap.
I couldn’t quit racing. Racing is my life. It’s been my life since I was
15 years old and I’m certainly not ready to give up racing, so, for me,
it’s not that difficult to walk away from Nextel Cup because I realize
where I am in my career. If I was 26, I wouldn’t walk away. It’s time for
me for a lot of reasons. I went over those reasons last year and all, but
I’m gonna continue to race. It’s my whole life. Climbing in that race car
today and going out there, I’m just wishing that we could be drafting
because that’s the real deal. That’s what I live for. I’ll continue to
race. It’s my expectation to be in the 6 truck full-time, and then do some
other appearances and what have. If something were to work out that I
wasn’t in that truck, you’d catch me at the Saturday night short tracks
across the country. I am not done racing by any means.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT DRIVING AT DAYTONA? “It’s Daytona. The first time I
came down here was 1981. It’s just a lot different as far as the
preparation goes and we only do it four times a year. It’s just different.
I can help these guys make a car that will fly at the next place, but for
here there are a lot of other forces out there that I don’t have control
of, and so it is what it is. It’s Daytona. It’s the biggest race of the
year and I need to win it. This is my last chance. I’m just gonna try to
get in the front on the last lap and hog the track or something.”
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