Marlin is moving on after losing Ginn ride

By Joe Menzer, NASCAR.COM
January 15, 2008
06:52 PM EST

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Sterling Marlin was smiling, his face flushed by a sun that shone down on Daytona International Speedway as he stood outside the hauler promoting his latest Sprint Cup Series car sponsor.

It felt good to smile, he admitted. There were times last year when Marlin couldn't do it, or at least had to strain to smile through the pain after losing his ride unexpectedly halfway through the Cup season when Ginn Racing "merged" with Dale Earnhardt Inc., costing him and many others their jobs.

"It was disappointing," said Marlin, who has made 732 career starts at the Cup level with 10 wins and 11 poles in 21 seasons. "Going into the year, I knew it was going to be my last full-time year. And to get through running Chicago in July and then get a phone call Monday morning where the rug is jerked out up from under you, it was very disappointing. I've seen worse in racing, but I still would have liked to have finished the year out."

This year, Marlin plans to be behind the wheel of the No. 09 Chevrolet owned by Phoenix Racing for a total of just 10 Cup races -- the two Daytona races, the two Talladega races, several of the short tracks and the season finale at Homestead. The car's primary sponsor is Miccosukee Indian Gaming, which owns and operates a resort and casino near Miami, Fla.

Marlin said the part-time schedule this year is just what he wants at age 50. But he wanted one more full season behind the wheel a year ago, and did not think it was a gamble to enter into an agreement with Ginn and team owner Bobby Ginn for one last season in that role.

One year ago almost to the day, Ginn stood on a stage in a ballroom at a hotel just outside Charlotte, N.C., and spoke forcefully of his five-year plan to succeed in the sport on a large scale. Marlin and fellow veteran drivers Joe Nemechek and Mark Martin were supposed to represent the cornerstones on which the budding operation would be built.

Ginn even talked about eventually expanding to a four-car team and competing for championships. It all sounded so good. Marlin admitted that, like most everyone else, he ate it up at first.

"It sounds real. I guess you plan on that until the bills start coming in," Marlin said.

In Marlin's opinion, that's what ended up doing in Ginn. The sport proved more expensive than Ginn had envisioned, plus some sponsorship money that Ginn had been counting on never materialized.

Pretty soon, Marlin started hearing that while the bills were starting to come in, not all of them were going out being paid on time.

"I know some sponsorship money didn't come along that they thought was locked up. You're talking about eight or ten million dollars there that didn't show up," Marlin said. "I guess it just snowballed. There wasn't a lot of money coming in and there was a lot going out. Sometimes I guess you've just got to say, 'Hey, I can't do it no more.'

"You would hear through the grapevine that bills weren't getting paid."

At the same time, Marlin said he saw money being spent unwisely.

"I saw some waste, stuff that money didn't need to be spent on trying to get the car to go faster. You don't need it," Marlin said. "You don't need $300,000 pit boxes. That don't make the car go no faster.

"Whether it was Bobby's fault or who's fault, I don't know. I'm not here to say who done what. It just got away from them, the enormous amount it takes to run a team. I think it probably just overwhelmed him. Bobby didn't realize what it took to do this."

Marlin and Nemechek eventually brought a lawsuit against Ginn, seeking payment of at least the remainder of the $1.2 million base salaries each of them had been guaranteed for the full 2007 season. Marlin said he has since settled with Ginn and holds no grudges. He just wishes it had gone down differently.

"I settled. They paid in full and I don't have any problem with them," he said. "I mean, you wanted to run the rest of the races because you would have made more money [in bonuses, such as being entitled to 45 percent of the team's race winnings]. But they paid for the races you ran and paid you for your salary. I wish we could have run the rest of the races, but the way it shook out you couldn't."

It was, he said, a sign of the changing times in NASCAR. He said if he were coming into the sport now, it would be enticing on one hand because of the millions upon millions he could make as a driver. But in many other ways, he's not so sure he would enjoy it.

"As times have gone along, it's gotten more commercialized and more frustrating. Of course, nothing is like it used to be -- the NFL isn't like it used to be. But my dad [Coo Coo Marlin], he raced with [guys like] Richard Childress and Hoss Ellington. Those guys had a ball. Nowadays, it's such a big business that you're on pins and needles all the time," Marlin said.

"I don't know. I look at what I went through -- working on my dad's car, helping him build motors and hang bodies, drove stuff up and down the highway, didn't have 10 cents to rub together -- and we still had a good time, finally getting a ride from Hoss Ellington and just working our way through it. To me, it makes me appreciate it. I think I appreciate it a whole lot more than those [young] guys because they didn't see the lean times, seeing the sport grow like it did, the TV taking off like it did.

"I wouldn't mind being 22 and doing it again. I probably would do it until I was about 35 and then I'd be like, 'See y'all.' And be done with it. But I'm not that age anymore."