A 50-year-old testament to the power of driver fitness

The cigarette lighter in David Pearson's car worked for a reason, and legend has it that rivals knew they were in trouble when they pulled alongside and saw the Silver Fox puffing away. Dick Trickle famously had a hole drilled into his helmet so he could smoke under caution. Curtis Turner flicked ashes out the window under green. Jimmy Spencer never looked right without the chewed end of an unlit Dunhill and Punch cigar clamped between his teeth. For decades everyone got rich off tobacco money, and cartons of Winstons were piled high for the taking.

Carl Edwards opened eyes with his revealing "ESPN the Magazine" cover.

Those days are gone. Big tobacco has been rooted out of the sport. Any drivers who smoke today do so clandestinely, well aware that it's poor public relations to be caught taking a drag on camera. And Saturday night, 50-year-old Mark Martin showed the power of fitness and conditioning by kicking everyone's butts at Phoenix International Raceway.

Enough of the old canard that claims race car drivers don't have to be in shape. It's being disproved a little more every day. The two top contenders for the Sprint Cup title last year were arguably the two fittest full-time drivers in the garage area, given that Carl Edwards has a physique made for magazine covers and Jimmie Johnson can run rings around the competition inside the car or out. The current points leader, Jeff Gordon, owes part of his renaissance to a stretching and workout routine that's helped alleviate the problems of an aching back. And then there's Martin, only the fourth driver 50 or older to win on NASCAR's premier circuit, who adheres to a strict workout routine, closely monitors his diet, and is a living testament to what a few more bench presses and a few less French fries can do.

"He might be 50, but he's got the body and the mental attitude of a 35-year-old," car owner Rick Hendrick said. "There are guys in their 30s who aren't in the shape he's in, and not as dedicated and committed to the sport as he is."

Now, while this isn't another dissertation into the old and somewhat tired question of whether drivers are athletes, a few basic points have to be made. Lugging a 3,500-pound stock car around a race track for four hours in 100-degree temperatures is unquestionably difficult, and doing so without wrecking requires a degree of concentration and focus that those of us outside the cockpit simply cannot understand. No, the pursuit is not inherently athletic, like dunking a basketball or leaping between defenders to catch a touchdown pass. But there is no doubt, racing in NASCAR over a long period of time can beat a body down. Accidents can leave muscles sore to the touch. The unrelenting schedule can take a toll physically and mentally. As any athletic trainer will attest, exercise combats all that -- as well as strengthening the heart and lungs, improving flexibility, reducing joint pain, even promoting better sleep.

"Fitness in general, no matter what type of athlete, provides a number of advantages, from resisting fatigue during a race to being able to come back and do the events again and again, and resisting that chronic fatigue of week after week of racing," said John Stofan, principal scientist with the Gatorade Sports Science Institute in Barrington, Ill. "General fitness, whether it's aerobic or muscular, really goes a long way toward keeping the guys in shape for the season, and that goes for football, baseball, anything. The more fit you are, the better your cardiovascular system, the better your thermal regulation, the better your muscles are going to work and resist that fatigue. With the grueling schedule, it gives the guys the ability to come back and do it time after time, game after game, race after race."

Michael Waltrip has completed many races with his feet, as well.

Stofan worked with Martin and former teammate Matt Kenseth in 2001, studying them under practice and race conditions, and ultimately discovered that NASCAR drivers face challenges involving both muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness. Ask him if a driver is an athlete, and he'll offer a resounding yes.

"Fitness makes individuals better able to resist physical stress," said Stofan, whose work with Kenseth ultimately produced an in-car drinking system now used by 20 drivers. "What I'm talking about is, components of muscular strength to being able to resist fatigue. For the NASCAR driver, obviously that fatigue is a critical issue. They're doing the same things, using the same muscle grounds for a long period of time under very intense conditions. When we were able to work with both Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin back in 2001, we looked at these guys under a lot of different conditions during their practice and race events, and really noted that the challenge for these drivers were muscular strength as well as maintaining hydration and being able to maintain mental ability and mental function."

To be fair, it's not like every NASCAR driver has a reputation as a couch potato. There are several who have displayed their athletic ability in other fields -- like Dale Jarrett, who received college scholarship offers for golf; Kyle Petty, who was a standout baseball and football player in high school; Sterling Marlin, who was captain of his high school football team his senior year, playing quarterback and linebacker; Elliott Sadler, who earned a basketball scholarship to James Madison University before blowing out his knee; Robby Gordon, who is an ace water skier; and Michael Waltrip, who has run several marathons. But now we're in an age where racing has become a specialized science, and kids are in go-karts at 5 years old, and if they want to make it they don't have time to play anything else. And as a result, the drivers of recent generations don't seem quite as athletic as their predecessors. You don't see many up-and-coming NASCAR drivers who played high school football anymore.

There are always exceptions. Tony Stewart, who to his credit has tried the workout thing before, seems to be able to drive the wheels off anything regardless of what physical shape he's in. You have those freaks of nature in any sport, from John Daly in golf to John Kruk -- famous for the "I ain't an athlete, lady, I'm a ballplayer" line -- in baseball. But not everyone can get by on innate talent alone. Racing is very much a mental sport, and decision-making is one of the first things to suffer when fatigue takes hold. It's not uncommon to see drivers fade at the end of long, difficult races, and you have to wonder: would the case be the same if they were in better physical shape?

No one asks that question of Edwards, or Johnson, or Martin, whose 5:30 a.m. workout wake-up calls are well-known. The veteran driver has even had an impact on some at his Hendrick Motorsports team, convincing Dale Earnhardt Jr. to lay off the junk food and car owner Rick Hendrick to hit the treadmill. "Mark came by to see me in the coach one night and he said, 'I'm going to talk to you about how you eat and how you work out, how much sleep you get,'" Hendrick, a self-proclaimed "ice-cream junkie," said earlier this year. "So for about an hour he scolded me about the way I lived. I've been trying to do better."

So far, Hendrick has lost 20 pounds. For everyone else, there's always Strength Training for Performance Driving, a book Martin co-authored with exercise physiologist John S. Comereski in 1994. Used copies are available over the Internet for as low as $11.25.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.