Mark Martin, who turned 50 last month, has had plenty of chances in the 19 years he spent driving for Jack Roush to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship. (Todd Warshaw/Getty Images Photo)
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Martin signed with Roush in late 1987, beginning a driver-owner relationship that lasted nearly two decades. During that time, Martin won 35 Sprint Cup races and 41 poles. He also was series runner-up four times (1990, ’94, ’98 and 2002) and qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup for three consecutive seasons, from 2004-06.
Among his myriad achievements, Martin has won a record 48 NASCAR Nationwide Series races, five IROC Series championships and two NASCAR Sprint Cup All-Star races. He had planned to retire after the 2005 season, but Roush convinced him to extend that to 2006 after Kurt Busch left the team and Roush came up one driver short.
At the end of 2006, though, Martin said he wanted to cut back to a part-time schedule and shocked the NASCAR world by signing with Ginn Racing, the old MB2 Motorsports squad that had been sold to casino developer Bobby Ginn. Martin came inches short of winning his first race with Ginn, the 2007 Daytona 500.
But after a hot start to the season, Ginn quickly ran out of money and sold the team to Dale Earnhardt Inc., who laid off most all of the old Ginn employees except for Martin and his team. It was a difficult and unproductive time for DEI, which was also dealing with the distraction of losing Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Martin has had some solid runs at DEI this season, including nearly winning the spring Phoenix race. “I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life,” Martin said prior to the Coca-Cola 600 in May. “And
I am so not ready to quit racing. And in 2005, if I was faced with all or nothing, it was certainly nothing. But we have managed to figure out a way to do this. And I'm in the best physical condition I've ever been in my life, bar none, without question. I'm in the best mental state that I've been in since I was a kid, because I'm so happy. … So I look forward to every day with enthusiasm and look forward to continuing.”
But now he’s decided to return to racing full time, and will join the sport’s perennially most powerful team full time in 2009. There, Martin will pursue his dream of finally winning a NASCAR Sprint Cup championship. And he just might make it happen.
Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor 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 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
