Weekend That Was: Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- Another weekend. Another top-five finish for Mark Martin. And another few rounds of relentless cat-and-mouse posturing between Martin and reporters aching to know with absolute certainty what Martin is going to do when the Nextel Cup circus hits Bristol Motor Speedway later this month.

Martin keeps saying he is getting tired of this. But it doesn't look like it.

Martin keeps feigning mock indignation every time a media type tries to find yet another way to try to get a truly definitive answer out of him. He keeps saying he wishes we would quit asking.

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But he's usually smiling or laughing as he does so. In a twisted sort of way, Martin seems to be enjoying this almost a little too much -- not that he isn't entitled.

Martin has been around Cup racing long enough to know that the questions will keep coming as long as he stays atop the leaderboard in driver points -- and especially as long as he keeps leaving the door ever so slightly cracked open to the possibility that he's not actually going to slide out of the driver's seat of the Ginn Racing No. 01 Chevrolet as scheduled for the March 25 race in Bristol.

Contrary to what Martin and others might think, reporters are tired of asking the same questions, too. It's way past time to move onto another subject.

But as long as Martin keeps hinting that there is a chance -- however slight -- that he will keep on driving the 01 past Bristol and beyond, the questions have to be asked.

After finishing fifth Sunday in the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the questions came in waves again. Martin dropped the hint that if he wins this Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway -- which he called one of his "specialty" tracks -- it could change everything.

The thought of Martin winning a race this season coming into the Daytona 500 not even a month ago might have seemed ludicrous. He was going to drive a part-time, 23-race schedule for Ginn, a new team with no history and therefore, it seemed, little hope for success behind it.

Martin still remembers, not so fondly, the media's general reaction when he announced this plan for 2007 at Talladega last October.

"It wasn't met with the warmest welcome ... I was pretty sure you guys were never going to talk to me again," Martin said. (Continued)