Martin, Hornaday proving age irrelevant in NASCAR (cont'd)

According to Hornaday, 50 is nifty but 51 is even more fun.

"But I feel 18 again," he said. "I'm just having a lot of fun doing what I'm doing right now. We have assembled a great team who has been together for several years now. I'm just really proud and happy with where we are at in the Truck Series."

Age is just a number when it comes to winning races, Hornaday added.

Seasons change

Ron Hornaday, Mike Skinner and Johnny Benson were the most dominant drivers in the Truck Series just two years ago. Now they find themselves going in three different directions.

• Complete story
• Martin always first in class

"The key to winning at any age is surrounding yourself with great, knowledgeable people. I have a good crew chief in Rick Ren. He knows my driving style and me. I also think we have been very lucky this year having pit stops and strategy go our way. Experience sure helps some of the places we have won at this year. We have great notes from years past. I'm not sure what it is but I feel very blessed to be a part of it."

Martin agrees.

Every time he gets out of the race car he is overly gracious and honored to be driving what he calls crew chief Alan Gustafson's car.

"Age is irrelevant with Mark," Gustafson said. "You hear his age come up and people ask me a lot. If I've been asked one, I've been asked a thousand questions about Mark and Mark's age and I can tell you I don't even think about it. It doesn't even come into the equation when I talk with him and work with him and when I'm around him. It's irrelevant with Mark."

Irrelevant, because you are only as old as you feel and in Martin's case he acting like a young 20-something jacked up on natural adrenaline and drive.

After his win at Chicagoland Speedway this summer, Martin said, "When I'm pumped up driving fast race cars, I certainly don't feel 50, but I do on Monday mornings. ...It's going to be nearly daylight by the time I get home. I don't care. But that is certainly past my bedtime. Adrenaline is something really, really special. These guys have made me feel really, really good and really special, even on the days when I stub my toe, they're the first ones to pat me on the back."

"He's incredible," Gustafson said. "He's as good as any of them, and you can't say enough good things about him."

Nicknamed "Bionic Man" by teammate Jimmie Johnson, Martin is 31 years older than the youngest Cup Series driver -- rookie standout Joey Logano.

"And kicking my butt," laughed Logano, who already has one Cup victory to his credit and was mentored by Martin early in his career.

"Hopefully I'm as good as Mark Martin is at that age," Logano said after this season's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard where Martin finished second to Johnson. "Pretty amazing to see him go out there and run that good. I went up to him before qualifying and said 'man, what the heck did you do,' after he made his run. He said, 'I just tried to scare myself every corner.'

Whatever it takes to remain competitive, but fear is a big motivating factor. It's fear of walking away from something you love to do, walking away from the only thing you may know how to do.

The average life span for an adult male is mid- to late-70s, so these athletes have to walk away from their sport knowing they have half their life left to live without the thrill of the game, nothing to satiate that competitive drive.

Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, who returned to the pool last year at 41, once said she thought her competitive fire would die down with maturity. Turns out, she said it has only gotten worse and she hates to lose now more than she did in her 20s.

Fortunate for her and others like her -- Martin, Brett Favre, Tom Jackson, whoever -- there is no official expiration date as long as you remain relative.

And with four Cup wins this season, Martin is more than relative. He's an inspiration.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.