It was the kind of race Mark Martin used to lose. Even the driver himself will admit, fuel mileage gambles haven't historically played to his strengths. He's won maybe two events that way, lost maybe 10 times as many. One of those defeats came at Michigan International Speedway, where he led 141 laps in 1993 but ran out of gas and finished sixth.

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I'm not going to lay in bed at night and think about what it will be like to lift that trophy. It just doesn't exist, you know, in my brain. We've won some races this year. I don't expect them. I just hope that they come. Same thing with the Chase. I just want to make the Chase. We'll worry about how we do in it after we find out we're in it.

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-- MARK MARTIN

So how strange was it to see Martin, an unfortunate connoisseur of all the crushing disappointments NASCAR can offer, playing the fuel-mileage game Sunday on that same Michigan race track and winning. When Jimmie Johnson and then Greg Biffle ran out of fuel on the final lap, there was Martin, nursing the No. 5 car home, for once in the perfect position -- a description that not only applies to his place on the big 2-mile speedway last weekend, but also a relationship with Hendrick Motorsports that has the 50-year-old enjoying the ride of his life.

This is not the pessimistic, problem-plagued Mark Martin we used to know. Oh sure, it seemed that way at the beginning of this season, when consecutive blown engines at California and Las Vegas and a tire problem at Atlanta buried him in the point standings.

Oh well, we thought, that's how it goes for the guy. He lands a ride with the sport's preeminent organization, an eight-time championship team with unparalleled equipment, and gets off to the worst start of his 20-year NASCAR career. Typical Martin luck.

Eleven races later, look what's happened. The two drivers tied for the Sprint Cup lead in victories are 24-year-old Kyle Busch and another driver more than twice his age. Martin has made up 16 positions in the standings and is now in position for a Chase berth.

Since his early-season misfortune, no driver on the circuit has been better than a dude who actually announced his impending retirement five years ago. And then there was Michigan, where a guy who's had circumstances cheat him out of championships and Daytona 500 victories had a rare little bit of good luck fall his way.

It's all enough to make you wonder: Is this somewhat unexpected season the one where Martin at last finally reaps the benefit of all that heartache? Have all the things that have gone wrong for Martin -- painful, character-building things -- set him up for one magical campaign where everything goes right?

Now, that's not to say Martin is going to be celebrating that long-sought-after championship in Homestead, Fla., on the night of Nov. 22. Three-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson, one errant fuel-mileage calculation aside, is still out there. Tony Stewart continues to build momentum. Jeff Gordon is clearly a threat again. Busch has the potential to win races in bunches.

But right now, you have to list Martin among those top contenders, even if perhaps he's reticent to do it himself. "You know how I look at it? If we don't win another race this year, we still did good," Martin said after his Michigan victory.

"I'm not going to deal with expectations that cut my legs out from under me again ever in my career. I'm going to go out and drive the race car as hard as I can drive every time I get in it. I'm not going to expect anything other than a tremendous effort by my team and from myself. I'm really pleased that we are having such a great year.

"But the thing that pleases me more than the trophies is just that we've been fast. That's really important," he said. "When you're not fast, there's not a whole lot you can do. But when you are fast, if you keep doing that every week, sooner or later you get great results. So, I just don't feel any pressure. I'd like to see us make the Chase because this race team deserves it, and because you never know. It would be awesome. It would be an honor to be a part of that elite group again. We have got the equipment to do it, and we've just encountered so many setbacks. If we can keep our roll here going, the car's plenty fast. We've just got to avoid more disasters."

Setbacks are something Martin has become all too familiar with. The caution flag that never came out after Clint Bowyer flipped onto his roof on the final lap of the 2007 Daytona 500, which he lost to Kevin Harvick by .02 seconds. The 25-point penalty assessed for a left front coil spring in 2002 that hampered his pursuit of Stewart in 2002.

The 46-point penalty for an improper carburetor spacer levied in 1990, which ultimately cost him a title he would lose to Dale Earnhardt by 26 points. The sting of four times finishing second in the championship race.

No wonder Martin prefers to live in the moment, and take these small successes race by race as they come. He's been burned by the big picture too many times.

Even now, the old insecurities occasionally pop up. Martin qualified 32nd for the Michigan race and told car owner Rick Hendrick that if he kept qualifying that poorly, he ought to be fired. "Everybody acts like that's stupid, but it really isn't stupid," Martin said. "I'm serious. If I can't do better than that in the stuff they're giving me, they're going to need to get somebody else."

That seems highly unlikely. Martin is riding a wave unlike any he's been on in a long time, and it's carrying him directly toward one place that's historically been rather painful for him -- the thick of the championship hunt. He got into this two-year stint with Hendrick because he loved driving the race car, not to make some dramatic, final charge at the title that's always eluded him.

And yet he seems destined to do so anyway, as if carried forward by forces beyond his control. Maybe this time, all the breaks and circumstances will go his way. Maybe one Sunday afternoon in the Irish Hills of Michigan was a harbinger of bigger things to come.

Martin, whose own history has taught him to be cautious around such matters, will simply drive and see what happens.

"I'm not going to lay in bed at night and think about what it will be like to lift that trophy. It just doesn't exist, you know, in my brain," he said. "I'll just go out there and race every time. I raced [Sunday]. I raced to win. I didn't tell anybody I was going to win before the race. I didn't expect to win before the race. I knew we had a great car. I went out and drove it.

"We've won some races this year. I don't expect them. I just hope that they come. Same thing with the Chase. I just want to make the Chase. We'll worry about how we do in it after we find out we're in it."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.