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CUP: Martin Holds Onto Second
Written by: Tom Jensen   
11/22/2009
Homestead, FL
 
Mark Martin finished 12th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

Mark Martin came into Homestead-Miami Speedway needing a near miracle to wrest the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship away from his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson.

And on this final night of the 2009 season, there would be no miracle of any sort.

In fact, Martin never led a lap in the season-ending Ford 400, as he and crew chief Alan Gustafson simply couldn’t get the handle on the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Martin gave it his all, as he does every time he straps into his seat, but his all wasn’t enough to even slow Johnson’s charge to a NASCAR record fourth straight Sprint Cup championship. Johnson finished fifth in the race, Martin 12th, and Johnson won the title by 141 points.
Jeff Gordon's third-place finish made team owner Rick Hendrick the first in history to sweep the top three positions in the points standings.

In his career, Martin now has finished second in the Cup points standings five times, behind four drivers who have a combined 17 titles.

Given how strongly Martin had run all season and especially during the second half of they year, to have the final race of the season end the way it did, must have been hugely disappointing. Martin’s body language certainly seemed to indicate it, as he looked tired and tense. But afterwards, he insisted that was not the case at all.

“There is no frustration,” Martin said. “You’d like there to be, but there isn’t.”

Still, it was a challenging night with a car that didn’t run as well as many of his have during the season. “It was a great fight and it was a sure tough night and actually the car was pretty good that last run and we changed stuff on it, went to the back, and wrestled and actually the last
run was decent,” he said. “If we could have been there the whole race we could have got a top 10 out of it. We are lacking something here and you know, as a group I think just a little bit and we will work on it for next year. But it was really a privilege to even have a crack at it.”

Martin said he will look back on the season focused what he an the team have accomplished, not the fact that they got beaten by Johnson in the points.

“This might have been the hardest one to win that we picked but I am so proud of this team and so glad I got to drive this car,” said Martin. “And I don’t know what next year will bring but we will dig deep and whether we do better, or worse, or the same — we are going to be looking for more and we will see if we can try and find enough to pull it off. It was enough this year to beat a couple of guys that held me off before — Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon. So it was really, really, really a special year.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of ?Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,? and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to




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