Mark Martin: "This is probably my last chance (to win the Daytona 500), and I don't feel any pressure because it won't make or break my career." Credit: Autostock

Martin to make one last shot at Daytona glory

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The Daytona 500 has long been considered stock car racing's top event, one that every driver wants to win.

The list of winners is a who's who of the sport's top drivers: Richard Petty, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Cale Yarborough, Bill Elliott, Dale Jarrett, Fireball Roberts, Junior Johnson, Bobby Allison -- even Indy Car stars A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti.

	NASCAR ACCELERATION •   Know Your NASCAR •   Tickets for Daytona •   2004 Daytona 500 highlights •   Get TrackPass for 2005! PHOTO GALLERY Tuesday's test session

Mark Martin's name isn't on the list. But the Daytona 500 sure is on his.

"I would like to say (the Daytona 500) really doesn't exist on that list," Martin said Tuesday as the second week of NASCAR Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona International Speedway got under way.

But Martin knows he can't say that. The Daytona 500 has been important to him since he was a teen-ager in Arkansas.

"When I was 17, 18 -- say 19 years old -- that was what I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 25, which would have been a young Daytona 500 winner," Martin said. "Obviously, that is a huge milestone. That's what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to that more than once. It was something that was a big deal."

The Daytona 500 never was an obsession for Martin, no matter how much he wanted to win it. Of course, Martin never really obsesses over anything in racing because he knows how much of a crapshoot the sport is.

"The reason that I don't play that up is because if you don't win it, you didn't," Martin said. "So waste your time on something else. That's how I look at it. I'm not going to waste my time on all that stuff. Hey, we either won it or we didn't.

"This is probably my last chance, and I don't feel any pressure because it won't make or break my career. I've been fortunate enough to win more than one race, and I didn't get to choose which ones they were. Doggone it, I wish I could have but I didn't."

Inside the Numbers Tuesday afternoon test speeds No. Driver MPH 1. J. Nemechek 184.661 2. S. Riggs 184.646 3. J. Johnson 184.260 4. J. Green 184.249 5. K. Kahne 183.718 6. M. Martin 183.547 7. M. Wallace 183.557 8. E. McClure 183.270 9. B. Labonte 183.154 10. D. Blaney 183.132 11. M. Kenseth 183.094 12. R. Wallace 182.619 13. J. Sauter 182.448 14. K. Earnhardt 182.415 15. J. Andretti 182.397 16. S. Marlin 182.389 17. S. Wimmer 182.208 18. M. Truex Jr. 182.094 19. B. Hamilton Jr. 182.046 20. D. Stremme 182.039 21. D. Cope 181.987 22. B. Vickers 181.715 23. R. Gordon 180.658 24. J. Burton 180.415 25. H. Sadler 180.353 26. K. Lepage 180.238 27. K. Shelmerdine 178.681

For sure, the Daytona 500 would be atop Martin's list of things he wants to do in his career. That and a championship would be desirable as Martin starts the final full-time season of his career.

Martin first competed in the Daytona 500 in 1982, finishing 30th in his own No. 02 Buick. Since then, there have been a lot of hits and misses. There was 2000, when Martin led 65 laps but was passed late in the race and finished fifth.

There was 1995, when Martin finished third behind Sterling Marlin and Dale Earnhardt. That's his best finish to date.

And there was 1997, when Martin led the most laps but ended up seventh.

Martin has seven top-10 finishes in the 500 but also has eight DNFs, including last year, when he blew an engine and finished last.

He's back for what could be his last shot at the Great American Race.

"I've been coming down here a lot of years," Martin said. "Nine times out of ten we're real disappointed with what we've got, and this is not much different. We'd be much happier if we were a half-second a lap faster, but that's just the nature of this racetrack. Usually, whatever you unload with and go out and run, you know what you've got.

"We will prepare two racecars for Speedweeks. We brought two new ones down here, and they are what they are. We'll do everything that we can to improve them, but the improvements that we make are the same improvements that our competition makes. So when we gain, they gain, and we generally don't close the gap a whole lot."

Martin was pretty close Tuesday, turning the sixth-fastest lap of the day at 183.963 during the morning session. That was a bit of a dropoff from his morning speed of 183.587.

MBV/MB2 teammates Joe Nemechek and Scott Riggs continued to pace the speed chart during the second week of testing. Nemechek and Riggs swapped spots from the morning session, with Nemechek fastest in the afternoon at 184.661 mph. Riggs was second at 184.646, a difference of .004 seconds.

Riggs had been .077 seconds faster than Nemechek on Tuesday morning.

Jimmie Johnson was third-fastest during Tuesday's afternoon test at 184.260, with Jeff Green fourth at 184.249 and Kasey Kahne fifth at 183.718.

Martin, though, really looks forward to the rest of the season, running at unrestricted tracks like Las Vegas, California and the rest of the schedule. That kind of racing is what Martin really likes, what he lives for. He lives for racing, period, because what is driving him from the sport -- besides a desire to go out on a high note -- is the non-driving demands on his time.

"I won't miss being at the racetrack on every Sunday for 38 or 39 weekends out of the year," Martin said. "That is a grind. It's not when you're a kid because every place you go is an adventure, but after 15 years it starts to wear old. And after 20 ... there are a lot of things I've given up in my life to do what I do, and to be able to fool all of you guys for all of these years, it took sacrifices and compromises. I won't miss making as many.

"Every year for me to be competitive in this thing, I've had to reach deeper. Believe me, in 2005 I'm having to reach as deep, right to the bottom of the bag (with) everything that I can find and everything that I can scrape up in order to be competitive next year because all the guys I race with are doing the same thing."

Finally, Martin had to put his foot down and say, "I can't do anything but go down next year because I can't find anymore."

For one more year, though, Martin will give it his all. After that, who knows? Maybe the Craftsman Truck Series. Maybe some Nextel Cup events.

But he'll be driving something, somewhere.

"If I couldn't work anything out in NASCAR racing, I'd drive some of my son's race trucks, his late models," Martin said. "I'd go around across the country and do guest appearances at short tracks, signing autographs and driving race cars.

"I'm not going to quit racing. I can't. I can't because I might short-circuit."

And that's with or without a Daytona 500 trophy. But you can believe Martin would rather have one.