Biggest test yet to come for happiest man in NASCAR

LOUDON, N.H. -- Had he stuck to his original plan, Mark Martin would be four years into semi-retirement by now. He would probably be flying his airplane around the world, managing his car dealerships and museum in Arkansas, and finagling an occasional start in the Nationwide or Camping World Truck circuits.

Martin would still be around, of course, but he'd be on the periphery -- close enough to NASCAR to whet his occasional competitive appetite, but far enough away to enjoy the kind of life his successes have afforded him.

Contract extension

Mark Martin isn't ready to hang up the helmet and step out of the car any time soon.

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And he wouldn't be having near as much fun as he is today.

Nearly five years after he announced his intentions to step away from full-time racing on NASCAR's premier circuit, Martin is still around, and showing no signs of going anywhere. He's 50 years old and in perhaps the best ride of his career, a Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 car that leads the Sprint Cup standings entering Sunday's Chase opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

In May, he announced he would return in 2010. On Friday, he announced he would continue into 2011. At this pace, he'll be committed through 2016 by the end of the year.

And who could blame him? Thanks to a lifetime of devotion to strength training and nutrition, he's in tremendous physical shape, a 125-pound featherweight more than capable of whipping up on kids half his age. He made his pseudo-retirement announcement in 2004 because he didn't want to one day cross that invisible line that separates the competitive from those who stayed in the car too long.

There are no such concerns now. Martin is the happiest man in NASCAR, walking around the garage area with his pockets stuffed full of house money, living the kind of dream season that never should have been reality. There's no pressure. How can there be pressure when you weren't even supposed to be here in the first place?

So of course he's going to keep going. He once seemed so wary of decline that the very prospect of it led him to step out of his iconic No. 6 car. Now Martin sounds as if decline is an impossibility.

"I don't see me falling off a cliff anytime soon," Martin said during the formal announcement of his 2011 extension, 20 races of which will be funded by the Web site GoDaddy.com.

"I hope that I'll be able to do the job, and I'm having a blast. I understand that it works better for sponsor commitments and those kinds of things. And so I'm pretty comfortable. There's no place I'd rather be today than at the race track. I didn't always feel that way. And so I did something about it. And now I feel that way. So now I'm doing something about that."

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Like so many others, he once seemed burned out by the grind, by the constant squeeze of demand and expectation, by the championship questions that seemed to dog him wherever he went. In October of 2005, he and former car owner Jack Roush held an emotional news conference at Lowe's Motor Speedway to announce the "Salute to You" tour, a year-long farewell that would mark the end of Martin's tenure as a championship contender on NASCAR's top circuit.

At the time Martin was 45, and getting a little long in the tooth for a circuit where twenty-something drivers were the norm. He would participate in a few select Cup events, maybe drive some on the Truck tour, and turn his iconic No. 6 car over to up-and-coming Roush driver Todd Kluever.

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What happened? "The simple version," Martin said, "is I changed my mind."

Kluever, as it turned out, never set foot inside the No. 6 car. Martin, as it turned out, wasn't finished. NASCAR's impending car cap precluded a return to Roush's team, so he wound up running a partial schedule at the former MB2 Motorsports, where he nearly won the Daytona 500 in 2007.

There was no question, he still had it -- for much of that year Martin remained in Chase contention, even though he didn't compete in every race. The decline he had feared seemed far, far away. So when circumstances led to an open seat in the No. 5 car, and Rick Hendrick called, the offer was too good for Martin to refuse.

And now, look at him. His hair is a little grayer and his car number has been reduced by a digit, but other than that it's like the whole "Salute to You" thing never happened. Sure, he gets some grief for it, from the same kind of people who grouse about the numerous retirements of athletes like Brett Favre or Floyd Mayweather Jr.

But it's impossible not to notice how buoyant, how optimistic, how downright un-Mark Martin-like Martin has been for much of this year. Sure, he can still be a little prickly, a little circumspect. Those things are a part of his nature. But the gloom-and-doom Martin, the one we saw for so much of his tenure at Roush Racing, the one who four times finished second in the championship race, has been replaced by a much more carefree person.

Unexpected, manna-from-the-sky success of the sort Martin has experienced this season will do that to somebody. Seeing his on-track results and off-track demeanor, it's very easy to believe Martin when he says he's racing for the sheer love of racing, unencumbered by all the baggage that usually weighs down someone in his position.

There's only one time when you notice the slightest bit of annoyance in Martin, hear the first hint of irritation in his voice. And that's when someone asks him about the prospect of finally winning the championship that's always eluded him.

These days, with the Chase upon us and the championship race front and center, it's happening every week. It's usually asked by a local reporter who doesn't travel with the circuit, doesn't know how much Martin hates the question, doesn't realize how hard the driver has worked to not be defined by title quests.

It was asked again on Friday. Martin, courteous as always in a public setting, answered it. But there was no mistaking the way his voice deepened, the way his timbre tightened, the way the disdain for the subject matter became lodged in his throat.

"It really doesn't have anything to do with the championship," he said. "I didn't take this job with hopes and dreams of winning the championship. I took it because I knew it was going to be a fast race car, and I wanted to drive a fast race car and have a chance to win another race. And we've exceeded my expectations, and we certainly will race with every ounce that we have for the championship that's 10 races away, and who knows what happens between now and then. But it's because I love what I do, and because I'm still competitive."

And yet, there's no mistaking his position at the top of the point standings, his role as one of a small group of drivers -- along with Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson -- who rank as the favorites to win it all. The longer Martin stays in it, and there's no reason to believe he won't be in it all the way to Homestead, the more he's going to be asked about the championship.

His somewhat Quixotic history as a title contender is going to be dredged up. His near misses are going to be recounted. The one thing Martin hates the most is going to loom larger and larger every step of the way between New England and South Florida, and there will be no way of avoiding it.

No, he's not in this to win a championship. But he's in the championship hunt nonetheless. How ironic that the more Martin succeeds, the more his sunny disposition is apt to be tested. If he can weather all that, then regardless of what happens at Homestead-Miami Speedway 10 weeks from Sunday, Mark Martin will be a happy man indeed.

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The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer.