Credit: Autostock

Conversation: Mark Martin

NASCAR veteran Mark Martin has seen so much water go over the dam and under the bridges in his career he's equally as comfortable riding the rudest rapids or serenely floating the middle of a placid lake.

Martin, 45, might be able to see far enough down the road now, to recognize the end of his career, but the driver of Jack Roush's No. 6 Viagra Ford is nowhere near hanging up his helmet.

A victory in June at Dover and a rousing second place finish Sunday in the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway have revitalized Martin at just the right time in the most unique season in his 22-year NASCAR Cup career.

Martin took a couple breaks in his busy schedule to talk with NASCAR.COM's Dave Rodman about his son, Matt's budding racing career; his latest Nextel Cup victory; change in NASCAR; and the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

The Chase for the Nextel Cup took its latest swoop at Pocono. What's your perspective on that?

AUDIO Conversation NASCAR.com's Dave Rodman talks to Nextel Cup driver Mark Martin

Mark Martin: We're in a deep hole. You can't count on running like this every week, but I've sure got a great race team and I just appreciate their effort. This is what I've wanted to do all my life is contend for these races and I feel like a kid again to be able to get out there and do it in these cars.

I'm happy. I don't know about the points. I'm not worried about it. I don't think we can get there, but heck, if we can go win some races (who knows). I want to win the Brickyard (400) next week. If we do that, maybe we'll get there.

Your career has taken a lot of twists and turns, but for the Martin family, there's another racer coming along, your son Matt. Does he prove that it's not the size of the racer it's the size of the heart?

Mark Martin: I guess he would be the extreme case of that. Matt weighs 67 pounds, so I think in this age of power steering, talent and skill is probably more important than brute strength or size.

Racing Legends Cars is one thing, but he's racing a full size Ford F-150. Is that what you have to do in this day and time, to build a racing career?

Mark Martin (left) with crew chief Pat Tryson Credit: Autostock

Mark Martin: No, I don't think there's any formula for getting to where you want to be. Everybody is able to get there in different ways and the most important thing is there's a certain amount of talent that is required.

There's definitely a certain amount of experience that's required and there's a certain amount of desire that is required. And if you're missing any one of those, you're probably not going to make it all the way to where you want to be.

A few years ago you were helping a youngster in Florida, Patrick Conrad, who's now racing Late Models as a teenager. Are there any other kids you're keeping an eye on, and with the way things have gone, is it critical to keep an eye on the younger talent?

Mark Martin: Only if you don't want to get out-done by the competition. Joey Logano is 14 years old and he's the best young racecar driver I've ever seen in my life.

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, he is Winston -- or Nextel Cup material today at 14. He's an incredible racecar driver and a super kid, so there are a lot of new, exciting kids coming along and the sport's in good hands.

We'll presently have some exciting new talent coming onboard in the next 10 years.

You've always been diversified, with the J-Mar Express trucking company back home in Arkansas. But now you've branched out to owning a car dealership. Has it been interesting, and does it give you more respect for guys like Rick Hendrick and Bruton Smith, who are huge in that industry along with racing?

Mark Martin: I haven't really thought about Bruton's business or Rick Hendrick's business (because) I don't really identify mine with theirs. My dealership is a small dealership.

Credit: Autostock

Batesville is a town with a population of 9,000. I have a great team there -- employees who have been in the car business for most of their lives -- and they do a great job. We're having a ball with it.

It's the only thing I've had passion for, outside of racing, since I was 15 years old, or for 39 years. So I knew it was right when I have that feeling and that passion and that nature toward something, it's the right thing for me to be involved with.

As we move forward over the next several years I'll try to get more involved but right now I get over there about every other week to spend some time with them. But they're really the team -- they're the ones making it happen and getting the job done.

Moving back to your racing career. When you won at Dover last month, it was a great stroke for you, the Viagra team and Pat Tryson, your crew chief. I remember back in 1999-2000, when you always said you cherished victories, because there were no guarantees for the next one. Does it make you appreciate Dover all the more -- especially with the way your team has come together?

Martin's win at Dover was his first since 2002 Credit: Autostock

Mark Martin: It does, you know, as you realize that there are more (wins) behind you than there are in front of you. That makes you appreciate them a little bit more.

But also, you have to earn these things. And they are so much more difficult to earn today than they used to be, for everyone. A lot of the guys who went to Victory Lane with me there at Dover -- it was their first time, in Nextel Cup.

In Pat's case, it was his second win, but that's one of the things that make it really special.

As much as that makes you want to win again, obviously it's gotten a lot tougher with the greater competition?

Mark Martin: Well, it has gotten a lot more difficult for us than it was in the past for a lot of different reasons. Our race team right now is more capable of winning than it has been in years, and that's a good thing.

I love working with these guys and I look forward to going to the racetrack with them every weekend.

You've been doing this a long time and this season is almost a case where the old school NASCAR guys have to undergo transfusions to get rid of the old blood. What's your take on the stretch of races leading up to the Chase for the Nextel Cup?

Mark Martin: I don't really know, you know? It's the same as it always is. How would you do anything different from week to week? I don't know how you would do that.

Every time you go to the racetrack, if you put 100 percent effort in, which we do, and you do everything you possibly could do, which we do -- then what else could you do?

So, I don't see, or don't know how to answer that question, because we're doing everything we can every week.

It puts you in a tough position because if you don't make that top-10 for the Chase, how do you assess the entire season?

Credit: Autostock

Mark Martin: I'd assess it as a huge disappointment. If we don't make it, it won't be on account of performance. I mean, without question the performance has been there by the Viagra team this year.

We've been fast on the racetrack and we've had a lot of mechanical failures this year. What's behind us is behind us and we can't fix what's already happened. All we can do is try to fix it in the future.

But I couldn't be happier with the performance of our car on the racetrack this year. It's been fantastic.

After your second place at Pocono, how are you looking at this weekend's Brickyard 400?

Mark Martin: We need to go win the Brickyard. You all know I don't say stuff like that very often (but) if we do that, then you all come and ask me if we can get to the top-10. But let's don't dwell on that right now because really all that matters to my team and me is winning the Brickyard.

That would make up for all the heartbreak that we've experienced this year. That would make a season. It's very difficult to single out one race and go get it, but, you know, my guys, after a heartbreak at Charlotte said, 'We've just got to go win Dover.'

I thought under my breath, 'Yeah, right.' And we did. So after Chicago, that's what I told those guys. I said, 'don't worry about it. No sweat. Let's just go win the Brickyard and that will make our season and let the points be what they may.'

(I'm singling out Indy) Because it was very realistic with the cars that we have today and I never wish for something that is slightly out of reach. But with the car I ran so well with at Chicago, it's a realistic goal, number one. Number two it's the biggest trophy, the biggest check and the biggest thumbs-up from our sponsor that might be disappointed with our bad luck.

What's your perspective on the ruling to have a single green-white-checker finish, where necessary, this season?

Mark Martin: As a competitor I hate it -- I just hate it. But from the fans' standpoint, they should love it. We're in the era of the fan, you know -- the TV rating era and that's what matters the most to NASCAR right now.

Mark Martin Video Highlights Driver Page Merchandise Article Archive

The fans are going to be the winners in this deal. From time to time -- maybe not every time, but maybe once in five, once in 10 or once every other time, I don't know; you're going to have a major turnover and have the whole thing go upside down at the end of the race.

That's exciting. It's not necessarily the best thing for the competitors, I don't think, but for every man's loss it's another man's gain so that's where we stand on it.

We'll get out here, and we're gonna do it and we're gonna try to benefit ourselves from every new situation that's created.

As someone's who has devoted his life to this sport, is it at all disturbing that NASCAR seems to think the product isn't good enough, so they have to do things to spice up the show, when a lot of people say it was good enough already?

Mark Martin: For 50 years, the show was good enough to bring us to network television, and there were very little complaints about a number of issues that have come up since the latest growth in the sport.

I'm an old guy that was around and got a taste of the era prior to the era that we're in now. So I'm going to be one of the ones who are probably going to resist change.

The new guys coming in aren't going to know any different. They didn't experience it the way it was before and the changes that are being made are being made for the show.

The fans are going to benefit from that so I don't see -- although I know some fans are complaining about it -- they're traditionalists like I am; but to really be honest about it, I don't see how they could complain, because they're going to benefit from it.

But from an old-timer competitor's standpoint, the show was what it was, and it was definitely good enough for our fans for a long, long time. Some of the changes we've made in this thing have been for the good.

Not racing back to the caution has been a good change. I don't see any drawbacks (though) there's been a couple of problems that have been generated from green flag pitting when the caution comes out and those kinds of things.

But I think that in that respect that everyone who's been so critical of it needs to realize that it was a change for the better -- a change for the safer and it was sort of teething pains that we needed to go through to come out on the other side with a better product for everyone involved.

So that was my stand on that, all along. As far as the point system goes, it will be more exciting for the fans. Like I said before, every man's gain is another man's loss.

That's sort of the nature of physics, I guess. At the end of the day I think that the fan will be the winner in the whole deal.

In what's become the fishbowl effect of Nextel Cup racing, as Richard Petty said, he remembers a day where you could spin someone out on the backstretch, come around and say, 'what happened to him?' How do you deal with that?

Mark Martin: There was (media) coverage when I started, already (in the early 1980s). It's not the kind of coverage we have now, but definitely coverage. So I wasn't involved when no one saw what happened on the backstretch at Daytona.

But it is something you have to be aware of. You have to handle it in a professional way. I think everybody learns that as they go forward, you know?

Conversation runs every Monday at 3 p.m. ET on NASCAR.COM.