Marlin finds silver lining despite losing his Cup ride (cont'd)

I talked with a few people I respect in the garage area at Indianapolis about the situation with Sterling. There are a variety of opinions. Maybe Sterling should have delivered better finishes. Maybe he should have been more aware of the situation at Ginn Racing, laying off people, not being able to make purchases from suppliers because of past due bills. Maybe Sterling should not have been such a nice guy. Maybe he shouldn't have been a believer.

Interviewing 101 kicked-in. Did you see it coming?

"I knew early in the year, in mid-year, you hear the rumors, ya know, they're short on money. I didn't ask any questions, just drive the car and figured if they needed to talk to me they would talk to me. I never saw it coming. I went to Chicago [the race before Indianapolis and, as it turns out, his last race with Ginn], everything was fine but I did know they might be having some trouble getting sponsors and keeping sponsors."

Sterling said most of the legal issues -- meaning contract and money -- have been worked out, so he can look for a ride. He said he doesn't have one.

"I can drive if I want to," Marlin said.

"Next year I was going to cut back anyway, wasn't gonna plan on running the full deal, unless a really good car come along to run. I was gonna cut back to 15 or 20 races, and if that didn't come off it didn't. So maybe I would run a few Busch races just to keep your hand in it, have a good time. You enjoy racing so if I don't do that we'll drive a Late Model at Nashville."

So at least we can watch him race there! I'm hoping we'll see him somewhere else before that, but, maybe not.

Sterling Marlin is 50 years old and that is old by modern day "racing standards," especially if you're a sponsor. Marlin has 10 career wins, is a two-time Daytona 500 champion and has three wins at Daytona. He has made 730 career starts. It would be hard to accept the fact he has made his last start. However, the fact is, older owners want younger drivers, even if the older drivers are schooling the younger drivers. The older the driver, the harder the race is, not just on the track, but also for sponsorship. Guys that have won have to work harder to prove they can still be a winner, on and off the track.

"Probably do," Marlin said. "I still work hard. Take Kasey Kahne. We probably out ran him 80 percent of the time this year. But it's all sponsor driven. You've got to have sponsors and I guess the sponsors might want younger guys, I don't know. I did all the stuff you're suppose to, went to all the tests I was suppose to, but the bottom [line], they didn't have the money."

One thing you can't take from Sterling is his desire. He still wants to race, and he wants to be competitive.

"Yeah, I do. We had some good runs this year, just didn't have the finishes to show for it," Marlin said. " I think that we had a car that could've won Charlotte, led at Talladega, had some top-10s going then something messes up but I was up to 24th in points, wasn't far out of 20th, and was one of the only teams that made it in all five races [at the start of the season] when we had to make [the starting field] on time.

"I think that says a lot about the race team and what we had going but you have to have money to make it all happen and I guess it just ran out."

I couldn't help but think back to the 2002 season. Sterling led the point race for 25 weeks, taking the top spot after the second race at Rockingham and holding it until after the 27th race at New Hampshire, when he fell to second, six points behind Mark Martin.

Marlin was fourth in points heading into Kansas a couple of weeks later. He was in a vicious crash that day and finished 33rd, falling to fifth in points. He was just 121 points out of the lead.

We had already set up a feature shoot with Sterling for the following week. We paid a visit to his home in Tennessee. He was sore but still upbeat. He showed us around the town, took our crew to lunch (he paid), made a day of it for us. We left in mid-afternoon just before Sterling got a telephone call from his doctor. He had a broken bone in his neck; his season and his shot at the 2002 championship were over. Now his fans hope it's not over, for real.

"Yeah, I still want to run, still want to finish this year out and thought I was going to finish this year out but it wasn't to be," Marlin said. "The deal is you don't want to drive anything that's on the borderline of making the race and going home and all that stuff. You want a competitive car, crew and team when you do find something. But if it don't happen, it don't happen. I'm happy where I'm at right now."

Hopefully Marlin will get that chance to finish out this season, and leave all of us a smile and one more Sterling performance.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer.