Martin revving up for his Hendrick debut, Chase '09 (cont'd)

Martin, who's driven part-time schedules the past two seasons for DEI, made the Chase for the Sprint Cup each of the first three years it was held, until he stepped out of Cup racing full-time at the end of the 2006 season.

Martin hasn't lost a step or grown any mold in semi-retirement.

If you take his past four starts: At Dover, Richmond, Michigan and Pocono in August, his 617-point total is third-best of everyone in the league, behind overall Chase leader Carl Edwards (679 points) and current runner-up Johnson (637).

And qualifying? In his past seven races, stretching back to Daytona in mid-summer, the four men who will be Hendrick Motorsports teammates next season have the four best starting averages of the entire Cup garage: 6.5 for Earnhardt, 8.0 for Martin, 8.1 for Gordon and 8.8 for Johnson.

After qualifying Friday, Martin made no secret that he's lost none of his zeal for racing.

"We all are racers -- all of us are competitors and when Jimmie was saying about how important starting up front helps ... it's not everything, but at the end of the day you've got to remember we're all competitors," Martin said when asked about many of Johnson's Chase foes qualifying in the back of the field. "If I qualified in the back [Friday], I'd say I didn't work on qualifying either.

"But to be real honest with you, the guys who qualified in the back tried just as hard as all the rest of us. So it's a real competitive game and obviously I love it and I have passion for it."

And it's that passion that has Johnson openly enthused about next year's alliance with Martin, 49, as much as Johnson welcomed Earnhardt for this season.

"I guess I haven't thought about age much," Johnson said. "I did at the Charlotte test with Brad [Keselowski, 24] and in the past with Kyle [Busch, 23]. You see different things that show their age in comments and in music and small things. Then, Mark loves his rap so it's weird to look at Mark and his age and the fact the guy loves rap music like most kids would."

But after shaking off the mirth of the moment, Johnson got serious about what not only he, but the entire Hendrick organization has to gain from the next chapter in Martin's four-decade Cup career.

"I'm extremely excited to work with [Martin] and get inside of his brain," Johnson said. "He has an amazing feel for the car and looking at data from the [Lowe's] test, it's been nice having [Earnhardt] Junior, because Junior drives the car a lot like I do so we've been able to expand on some things.

"From the naked eye, I've always respected Mark's techniques and thought that we drove in a similar fashion, so I look forward to understanding more what he thinks about and how he drives the car. He's going to be a great asset to Hendrick Motorsports.

"Hopefully we can get that 5 car [Martin's ride next season, when he replaces Casey Mears] running like it needs to. That team is coming in the right direction now and it's good to see it. Mark's going to run with that next year."