BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Mark Martin had every right to walk into the media center at Michigan International Speedway and tell everybody he told them so. For months, he insisted that he'd be back in Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 car next season, even as speculation swirled to the contrary. It all made him bristle. It made him angry. A few times, it made him lash out at reporters who were trying to find some clarity in a story that only grew murkier by the minute.

Now that Rick Hendrick has lined up a one-season ride at Toyota-powered Red Bull Racing for Kasey Kahne -- who will take over the No. 5 car in 2012 -- Martin could have marched in, pointed fingers, and dared anyone to ever doubt him again.

“

The whole week has just felt lighter.

”

-- MARK MARTIN

But that's not Martin. He doesn't grandstand, doesn't make a scene. Instead, true to his humble nature, he apologized.

"I reflect back on how I reacted in Indy, and regret what I said there," he said, referring to a particularly blistering diatribe he unleashed on reporters prior to the Brickyard 400 last month. "That came from the heart, and not from the head. It was grinding on me, and I apologize for what I said, and wish I hadn't said what I said. I should've just continued to hold on to the high road just a little bit longer, and it would've been all OK. Anyway, we're moving forward now."

He's moving forward without the yoke that had rested heavy on his shoulders since mid-April, when Hendrick announced that he had signed Kahne to a multi-year deal that involved the current Richard Petty Motorsports driver taking over the No. 5 in 2012, but left 2011 undetermined. As the 51-year-old Martin endured a winless season that left him with dubious Chase hopes, questions about what might actually happen in 2011 began to emerge. They were legitimate, given that the process of finding Kahne a ride for next season dragged on longer than even Hendrick anticipated, and that Ray Evernham -- a former Hendrick crew chief, and Kahne's former car owner -- predicted at Indianapolis that Kasey would be in the No. 5 next year.

Meanwhile, Martin was left to stew over the insinuation that he was an odd man out, which to him sounded alarmingly like he was going to get fired. While placing Kahne in a Red Bull car for next season presents its own host of questions -- is Scott Speed out? Will Brian Vickers come back? Will the organization field two cars or three? -- it takes the pressure off Martin, who can now go back to savoring a Hendrick experience that's been among the more enjoyable of his long and illustrious career.

"Now that it's behind us, it does feel a little lighter," Martin admitted. "So, I would say that we did the best that we could under the circumstances at managing all of that, and the air does feel a little lighter. We all really enjoy working together, and we've been doing a lot of that together, not just at the NASCAR events, but we're putting a lot of effort away from the events, as well, and picking things up. It feels fun again. We hope to keep this positive momentum going forward."

Improved performance -- Martin and crew chief Alan Gustafson have recorded top-10s in their past two oval races, boosting the No. 5 team to 12th in points and back on the Chase bubble -- has certainly helped. But the results aside, there's been something about this Hendrick stint that's dispelled the career pessimist that always seemed to lurk inside Martin, and left a happier, more carefree driver in its wake. No question, the uncertainty over Kahne and 2011 cast a shadow over all that. But in a test Tuesday and Wednesday of this week at Pikes Peak International Raceway, everything felt normal again.

"For some reason -- I don't know if it was just the fact that we got back in the Chase, I don't know -- but for some reason this week has just felt, to me, much better," Martin said. "... The whole week has just felt lighter. It's a combination of all of that. The biggest thing is that we believe we're headed in the right direction to get back [to being] more competitive. That's huge. The other thing was, like I said before, is I think as hard as we tried to not let [the Kahne question] have any effect on us, I think it did have an effect on how you feel. I think it has an effect on how you feel, especially as it wore on. It was fine for a while, but it wore on a long, long time. It wore on Alan, as well, and probably affected the guys on the car, as well. It's really an awesome group."

Martin has said so many times that he's having the time of his life driving for Hendrick, that you expect the Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes song to play every time he walks into a room. When he signed his most recent deal, he agreed to compete through 2011 not necessarily because he didn't want to drive anymore after that, but because anything beyond that year seemed too distant to consider. Now that Hendrick's 2012 plans for the No. 5 car are finalized, it's time for Martin to start thinking about what he wants to do after next season. Not surprisingly, he hasn't closed the door on anything.

"I've got in my mind what I want to do, and what I want to do is get almost this deep into the season next year," he said. "The cool thing is that I don't have to worry about it. I certainly would not make any kind of commitment this early of any kind. It is a very exciting time in my life. It is the best time in my life. From January '09 to now has just been the best ever. And it's exciting. I love this sport, and I've had the opportunity to work with so many great people, and the support of so many fans and so many people in the sport. And I'm going to let it ride pretty deep into next year, I think, before I make any kind of decision, because I want to take the one that is most fulfilling to me, whatever that might be, whatever it entails. That's what I want to do."

Whatever he does -- drive somewhere else, dally in the Truck circuit, fly his airplane around the world, manage his Arkansas car dealerships -- he knows his old car will be in good hands. He made sure of it, first approaching Kahne in September 2009 to gauge his interest in potentially moving to Hendrick. "You'll never get out of that car," Kahne told him with a laugh. Following next season, Martin will do just that.

"I really, really, really have friends for life there, and I want to make sure that they were in great, great hands," he said, "and I feel very confident about that now."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.