Celebrating 700: Mark Martin Perseveres

This past week’s Auto Club 500 in Fontana, Calif., marked the 700th start for one of the iconic names in the history of NASCAR. Mark Martin’s start in the soggy 500-miler was a story in and of itself and the author of 35 Sprint Cup victories to date observed the feat in the humble manner one has grown to expect from him. Always one to foist the praise of accomplishments onto anyone but himself, he chose to have a group photo early Sunday morning by his transporter with all of his past crew chiefs. It was not so much the 700 races that were being celebrated, but the relationships with these individuals and the times that they had shared along the way.

His first of 700 starts came driving a woefully under-funded entry at North Wilkesboro Speedway on April 5, 1981. Martin would qualify fifth that day, but would win the pole position in two of his next three starts. Life was good – he was all of 22 years old, had been successful in every racing endeavor he had embarked upon and was now racing on stock car’s premier level. It appeared that the sky was indeed the limit for the original “Young Gun.”

As Martin would find out, nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1982, he attempted to run his first full season of NASCAR Winston Cup competition for car owner Bud Reeder. Although he landed a sponsor, it turned out to be a sponsor in name only, further compounding the financial strain of running a full season. Against the advice of veterans and trusted acquaintances such as Darrell Waltrip for him to cut back to a limited schedule, Martin soldiered on to run all 30 events. He wanted to race. He wanted to do well in the points. He wanted to win Rookie of The Year.

Instead, he went bankrupt and was forced to return to the ASA Series to make a name and find a place for himself all over again.

By the time he won his fourth ASA Championship in 1986, Ford Motor Co. was looking to start another NASCAR team. A successful road and drag racing owner, Jack Roush would lead the charge, and had a few drivers in mind to pilot his No. 6 Stroh Light Fords. Trans-Am ace Scott Pruett declined Roush’s offer, as did one of Martin’s childhood heroes, Bobby Allison. It was Allison, however, that told Roush that the man he needed to front his upstart operation was Mark Martin.

Their first year together was 1988. Martin carried the team and the company on his back throughout the season, scoring three top 5s, and ending the year a respectable 15th in point standings. The next season, however, would be a true breakout year for both Martin and Roush. Battling down to the wire for the championship in only their second year together, the duo would score their first of 35 wins together at Rockingham in October, making good on a goal Martin had set about accomplishing almost a decade earlier. With a win in the bag and a third-place showing in the Winston Cup point standings wrapped up, Martin would say that his career was nearly complete. Or it would make him that much hungrier.

The next year Martin lost the championship in agonizing fashion to Dale Earnhardt in the final race of the season by a mere 26 points. Earlier in the year, he had been fined 46 points on a technicality involving an intake spacer that followed his second career win at Richmond.

While getting jobbed out of a Winston Cup Championship on a technicality no doubt stung, it would help serve to put things in their proper perspective in the coming years. For in 1992 at Michigan International Speedway, Martin’s friend Clifford Allison lost his life in a crash during a practice session for an ARCA race. Just two years later, his faith and will would again be tested. In 1994 — again at MIS — his best friend in racing, Ernie Irvan, was involved in a near-fatal accident after impacting the wall nearly head-on at 170 mph. Irvan lay in a hospital bed, unresponsive and on a ventilator, and given a 10 percent chance at survival when he heard the voices of his friends Earnhardt and Martin. It was then that he regained consciousness and began a lengthy healing process.

No doubt the biggest blow Martin has had to endure was in the summer of 1998 in the midst of a pitched championship battle with Jeff Gordon, when the two combined to win 20 of 33 races. Following the August race at Watkins Glen, where he finished second to Gordon, Martin returned home to Florida where his wife, Arlene, revealed to him that his father had been involved in a plane crash. Martin was at first not shaken; his father was his hero. An indestructible man who would undoubtedly be able to make it through any calamity, even something as harrowing as an airplane crash.

Sadly, the unthinkable became reality when it was learned that his father Julian, stepmother Shelley and sister Sarah were lost in a crash near Great Basin National Park in Nevada.

In 2002, another incident involving an airplane nearly claimed the life of a man he considered a second father — car owner Jack Roush. Roush was piloting an experimental aircraft that clipped a set of power lines in Alabama, sending the aircraft plunging into a lake. Roush was saved from drowning by retired U.S. Marine Larry Hicks, a rescue diver, who just happened to be on the lake when the crash occurred. Martin fell short of winning the title once again that season; by then however, he had reconciled what is most important not only in his career, but in life: Building friendships and maintaining relationships, something he had not had the time to do for the most part of his career.

It was events such as these that helped to reshape Mark Martin’s focus in recent years. He abandoned a retirement plan in 2006 to come back and help out his car owner — but more importantly, his friend — Roush, who was in need of a driver after some driver shuffling had not worked as planned. A part time schedule in ’07 was his calling, allowing him to spend more time with Arlene and son Matt, as well as friends he was forced to neglect due to the demands of his profession.

He has finally assumed some semblance of normalcy that had been missing for nearly two decades. His new calling in racing is not chasing an elusive trophy, but helping to mentor and shepherd along young drivers such as Regan Smith and Aric Almirola. And he is finally able to have fun racing again. No longer miserably obsessed over every point won or position lost, he is the envy of just about every driver in the NASCAR garage who tires of the 10-month grind.

On Sunday morning before the Auto Club 500, Martin said that one thing in the sport that has bothered him of late is the obsession on statistics. “Trophies do not make the man,” he is fond of saying. To Martin, fans should be exposed to the people and personalities that the foundation of the sport is built upon, not just the box scores showing who won what race, or led X-amount of laps. Through 700 starts in the premier racing series in North America, Martin has gained some perspective on racing, and on life in general, that many would be well served to emulate.

Mark Martin’s 700th start this past weekend was an impressive milestone to be sure, but it was also a continuation in the next chapter of his racing career. Although a Sprint Cup Championship trophy may not adorn his mantle, there are still many more races yet to be run. More importantly, if you ask Martin, will be the bonds and relationships built along the way, regardless of the ultimate finishing order.

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