A strange feel at Roush with Martin departure (cont'd)

This from a driver whose definition of semi-retirement also includes at least 14 Nextel Cup starts for Ginn Racing, about five truck races for the Wood Brothers, and some other Busch events that have yet to be firmed up. Kenseth wouldn't be surprised to see his former teammate add even more.

"I know Mark pretty well. If he starts out the year strong, the first six or seven weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if he runs the whole season," Kenseth said.

"I think that if he's up there in points, and with the way they're doing the Chase and all that stuff, if his team is competitive, I wouldn't be shocked if he ended up running the whole season trying to run for the championship. That's just me, though. He hasn't said anything like that. I just know him pretty well, and when he sat there two or three years ago and said he was going to retire, I didn't buy that, either. So we'll see what happens."

Meanwhile at Roush, the wrenches and wheels keep turning. The burden of leadership now falls on Biffle, a presence at Roush for nearly a decade since making his Craftsman Truck debut for the team in 1998, and Kenseth, the former champion who came aboard two years later. There are plenty of young drivers at Roush, kids like Ragan, Danny O'Quinn, Erik Darnell and Peter Shepherd, who will need advice and support on and off the track.

"That day of needing that lead guy to kind of keep some organization and keep everybody together, that day is kind of gone, slipped," Biffle said. "We're in a different era now. But you know certainly, a lot of the young drivers we have look up to me and Matt together as somebody that they can lean on for some help."

Roush Racing's metro Charlotte headquarters probably isn't the best place to gauge how Martin's move will affect the team, simply because Martin wasn't around that much. He lived in Florida, and spent much of his free time there overseeing his son Matt's burgeoning racing career. In that respect, the departure three years ago of Jeff Burton -- as much a manager as he was a driver -- was a bigger loss.

"Greg and I have really been, I don't know if I want to use the word more involved, but with us living around here, we're at the shop a lot more than Mark. Mark living in Daytona, I don't know if Mark's been in the Busch shop in five years," Kenseth said.

"He'd come to the Cup shop every once in a while, fly up here. But with him living in Daytona, it wasn't like he was sitting in a meeting, being there and being the guy. It wasn't anything like that. And not that we're in all the meetings being the guy, either. Really the guy to lead all that stuff up was Jeff Burton. Jeff Burton was the guy who was more involved in the organization than any driver ever has been."

Roush says similar things, crediting Burton and Martin in almost the same breath for helping to build his race team into the juggernaut it is today. But Burton didn't drive the organization's iconic No. 6 car. Burton wasn't the first driver Roush hired when he started his team in 1988. Burton wasn't the sport's tragic hero, the perennially thwarted championship contender who gave Roush Racing its soul.

Martin was all those things. And to Roush, he remains a close personal friend and confidante.

"Certainly, the personal relationship has not diminished," the team owner said. "We're going to miss him, but he won't be far away. We can reach out and touch him when we need to."