NASCAR WCUP: Mark Martin Interview; California Success

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

April 25, 2001

Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 Pfizer Taurus, is coming off a season-high fourth-place finish in last weekend's Talladega 500. As the NASCAR Winston Cup Series prepares for Sunday's NAPA Auto Parts 500 at California Speedway, a race he won in 1998, Martin and crew chief Jimmy Fennig spoke about a variety of topics as part of this week's NASCAR Winston Cup teleconference.

MARK MARTIN --6-- Pfizer Taurus -- YOU'VE HAD SOME PRETTY GOOD RESULTS AT CALIFORNIA? "We have and we were really running good in the race we broke our engine, but I've been fortunate out there to have real strong race cars and we're hoping to have one this week."

WHAT'S THE KEY TO GETTING AROUND THAT TRACK? "I think it's the same as everywhere else, it's getting through the corners fast and having a car that is secure -- that turns well and is real secure. The straightaways are long and you've got to go down those too, but where you really win and lose is going through those turns."

HOW MANY DRIVERS ACTUALLY PICK UP A WRENCH AND WORK ON THEIR OWN CARS? "I'd have to say they'd be terrified of it. They might mess something up. These race drivers these days work really hard and they have a tremendous focus, but that focus doesn't happen to be on turning bolts and screws. If you don't do it everyday, it's very awkward. I worked on my own cars forever and today I'm just not handy on a car because I'm not able to use those skills and keep 'em right up to date. If you get started on something, then you always get distracted which could lead to not finishing something properly. It's really not for the part-time guy anymore."

CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE ABOUT HOW THE ROUSH TEAM HAS DEVELOPED THIS YEAR AND ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF KURT BUSCH? "The development is that we went to Daytona and, as a group, didn't run up to our standards. Since then we hadn't raced another race of that nature, which is a restrictor plate race. There's been quite a bit of work done in that area and we went back and made significant improvement with our stuff there. This is a very competitive sport and you can't always have the best stuff because somebody is always out there working and working in the right area figuring out a way to get a leg up on the competition. We're fortunate to do that ourselves from time to time. Kurt Busch is just a truly incredible talent. He's a fine young man with enormous talent and reasonably good judgement for the amount of experience that he has, which will only get better as he compiles that experience."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT GOING TO CALIFORNIA AND THE TRAVEL INVOLVED? "I don't think we think about it that much. It's pretty tough on the team, the crews, the truck drivers, coach driver and souvenir vendors -- things like that -- it makes it real difficult. That trip going out is not as bad -- going from Talladega on out there -- as it is to turn around and be in Richmond ready to roll on Thursday. It's part of what we do and it continues to be more difficult all the time, but we manage."

WOULD IT BE EASIER TO GO FROM TEXAS TO CALIFORNIA INSTEAD OF BOUNCING BACK AND FORTH? "I don't think so. I don't think it makes any sense to do it that way either. No one can stay out there. We all have to come home. The drivers have to come home and take care of their business. The teams have to come home and take care of their business -- unload cars and re-load cars and work at the shop. It's not as simple as going to California and staying out there for three weeks or out west and staying out there for three weeks and racing. First of all, no one wants to be gone from home for that length of time. Even though you're only in your own bed a couple of nights and see your kids or something, at least you do. I don't think that would really help us that much."

IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE IN 500 MILES AT TALLADEGA AND 500 MILES AT CALIFORNIA? "Absolutely. It is a lot more stressful to do the Talladega race. Physically, it's probably equally demanding, but mentally there's a real premium to racing in a pack -- a restrictor plate drafting pack like we did for 500 miles."

HOW IMPORTANT IS THE DRAFT AT CALIFORNIA? DOES IT PLAY A ROLE IN CONSERVING FUEL AND MAINTAINING YOUR POSITION? "Let me tell you something about fuel mileage. I think that the real fuel mileage is made by the engine builder and the carburetor tuner. You can say that drivers save fuel and you can say you're following and saving fuel, and you might save a half-a-lap of gas or something like that, but the five laps are saved by engine builders and carburetor tuners. It's just not projected that way. Anybody who does real good brags that their driver is saving gas and they're smarter than everybody else, but in the end it comes down to your engine configuration and gearing and tuning of the carburetor and those kind of things. The draft is not super-important in California."

HOW DID THE NASCAR FOR DUMMIES BOOK PROJECT COME ABOUT? "They contacted my office with an interest in doing the book, so my business manager sort of put it together. One thing led to another and now the book is out. We hooked up with a writer that we were comfortable with, that was in motorsports, and were able to do something. It's not for an expert. It's for an amateur or a novice and has a lot of explanations about things people have questions about."

HAVE PEOPLE FIGURED OUT HOW TALLADEGA NEEDS TO BE WITH THE FACT THERE WAS NO ACCIDENT OR WAS IT JUST A ONE RACE SITUATION? "Talladega had the potential to be just disastrous and just because we got through that race without incident doesn't mean that it wasn't the most dangerous race of the year for us to drive in. There is more room there than there is at Daytona, so with the same rules at Daytona it's even more difficult to run a 43-car draft pack like we did. As you see, we ran 500 miles without a caution flag and still had a 38-car draft at the end of the race and that is extremely difficult and hazardous. It's good for ticket sales and it's good for TV ratings, but they're awfully tough conditions to race under. It's just incredible that we were able to get through the thing without triggering one of those major disasters."

IS THE SITUATION SOLVED OR WAS THIS A ONE-TIME THING? "I think if they would have had a caution that we would have had a lot more wrecks. Cautions breed accidents as well. I think when you don't have any cautions you usually don't have any cautions. Once they start, you just keep having 'em. I meant what I said. I said all those drivers deserve a gold medal for what they did there."

CAN YOU COMMENT ON SHAWNA ROBINSON TRYING TO QUALIFY FOR THE RACE THIS WEEKEND? "It's extremely difficult for women to make it in motorsports and there's no physical reason why the Winston Cup champion couldn't be a female. There's absolutely no reason, but it is a difficult thing to break into. It's difficult to grow up as a five-year-old driving stuff and work your way up through the short track and all the way up through NASCAR to be a champion. Typically along the way there are distractions -- more distractions of your ultimate goal being a female than being a male a lot of times. Things change and lives change and priorities change sometimes more. I'm involved in quarter-midget racing with my son and I see a lot of girls driving these cars and driving 'em well. I see girls beating the best guys on the race track in quarter-midgets. It's possible. Those are the champions of the future and if those girls don't get distracted along the way with some of the things in life -- and if they can keep their eye in the target and that's really what they want to do -- there's no reason why they can't make it. Shawna is a great race car driver and I'm sure she'll have a good race."

NASCAR TINKERED WITH SOME THINGS AT TALLADEGA WITH THE GREENHOUSE AND STEEPER WINDSHIELDS. IS THAT THE KIND OF APPROACH THAT MIGHT SOLVE SOME OF THE PROBLEMS OUT THERE OR NOT? "It might be able to help it. I applaud them for what they're trying to do on one hand. Being a dumb little racer as myself, I see that as a band-aid on the real problem which is it's a 230 mile and hour race track that we're trying to race at 185. It's gonna be very difficult to do. It would almost be safer for the drivers if we were racing 220 miles an hour because there certainly wouldn't be a 38-car draft at the end of 500 miles without a yellow flag. The problem is that separating the cars to some degree is not good for ticket sales and it's not good for TV ratings, which are very important in this sport. From a competitors standpoint, it would have been a lot better if it would have been three or four packs of six, but that certainly wouldn't be as good for the ratings. It depends what side of the fence you're on as to what is your most important priority. Hopefully, you can solve it all, but it's gonna be extremely difficult to solve with the configuration of the race track in present form. You don't have all that problem at a two-mile race track like California. We'll come out there and race and no one will say a word, but Daytona and Talladega are big ol' race tracks. These cars are capable of a lot more than they were in the sixties and seventies, so it's a tough situation. I'm not gonna defend NASCAR's point, nor will I stab 'em in the back either. I'm just saying it's an incredibly difficult situation that even the competitors don't have an answer for -- other than reconfiguring the race track."

IF YOU COULD BUILD A TRACK, WHAT WOULD YOU MODEL IT AFTER? "I would throw in a Dover, minus the concrete. There's nothing wrong with these mile-and-a-half speedways their building today, but I wouldn't build anything larger than a mile-and-a-half, if I was building one because some day two-mile race tracks are gonna be a problem like the two-and-a-halves. These cars keep getting faster and faster and some day Atlanta might face that problem. California could face that problem, although with the banking that's there it's gonna be quite a long time before you every have to race that kind of problem there. The race cars are just capable of doing a lot more than they were 25 years ago and you have to keep that in mind when you're building these race tracks. You don't want to get into a situation where you have to start restricting them. When you restrict them, it's like putting the cruise control on at 65 going down the interstate. Everything is fine. You can run three lanes wide, four lanes wide, but then when you run up on road construction and the lanes keep going straight because you have to turn because of the barriers, you get nervous all of a sudden because you hope everybody does the right thing. If one person does the wrong thing, you all wreck. So, that's where we're at right now with these big ol' race tracks like Daytona and Talladega."

HOW IS IT NOT RACING BUSCH THIS SEASON AND WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW THAT YOU DIDN'T BEFORE? "A little bit of piece of mind. I'm able to give a little bit more time and focus to the Winston Cup deal and I'm able to give a little bit more time this year and focus to my son's racing. But, for the most part, it's just cut a lot of mania out of my life and given me a chance to have a little piece of mind. I have enjoyed not being in the Busch races so much that I can guarantee I'll never go back to a schedule like I was trying to do prior. I won't say I would never run Busch races again because I will if the situation is right, but I won't do it and run 38 Winston Cup races and 14 Busch races. That's ridiculous."

IT WAS HARDER LAST YEAR DOING THAT THAN 10 YEARS AGO? "Last year was the hardest because the media demand, the press demand -- the sponsor demand was not that much greater than it has been in the past, but to a small degree -- and then the fan demand is just astronomical. Trying to get from one car to the other in practice and drive and not have time to do interviews, not have time to sign autographs, not have time to speak to the TV cameras that want you, is actually very stressful. That stress finally wears you down. When you're a young man it takes a while for it to wear you down, but I've been doing it a long time and the demand is greater. The other thing you have to remember is I've been doing it so long that eventually something had to give. I'm really enjoying not racing the Busch races."

DO YOU THINK DOWN-SCALING THE ENGINES WOULD BE GOOD? WHAT WOULD YOU DO? "I don't think that's the answer for Daytona and Talladega at all. I completely and totally disagree with that. I don't know that anything you do to make these cars have 450 horsepower, I think, is all gonna run relatively the same on the race track no matter how you achieve it. So I don't know that downsizing the motors would really solve any kind of problem for us. I'm not saying it wouldn't because I'm not very smart, but in my mind I would have a big question mark on that. I think something needs to be done about engines unrestricted to control costs. It's out of control now with the engine costs and the things we're doing with these engines. It's just crazy, but I don't know that a small cubic engine is necessarily the answer either. There might be other ways to skin that cat, but I don't think anybody is ready to talk about that just yet."

JIMMY FENNIG, Crew Chief --6-- Pfizer Taurus -- WHAT'S THE KEY TO GETTING AROUND THE TRACK AT CALIFORNIA? "California is a nice place, a nice smooth race track. It seems like you have to be a little bit on the free side there to get around fast enough, but it's a nice, smooth race track. You can do a lot of racing out there."

DO YOU FIND THAT MOST DRIVERS DON'T WORK ON THEIR CARS THESE DAYS? "Yeah, I haven't seen any of the drivers really turning a wrench. They work for race teams that have professional mechanics that do that. Years ago you would always see the drivers doing it, but nowadays the teams have enough people where the driver doesn't even have to worry about it."

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SAVE FUEL AT CALIFORNIA AND HOW CAN ENGINES BECOME MORE COST-EFFICIENT? "The gas mileage, that's usually Jack's department. Jack works real hard on tuning his carburetors. He'll get them as lean as possible to burn the least amount of gas that he can. That's in the jetting of the carburetor, where he'll got down on jet sizes and really tweak his carburetor for fuel mileage. In the future I wish NASCAR would, as far as the open motors go, get rid of qualifying motors. It takes so much time and money to build qualifying motors and you're actually looking at two different types of motors -- qualifying motors versus race motors. You have two different expenses there. I just wish they would have one motor where you practiced, qualified and raced."

HAVE TIRES ALLOWED YOU TO SIT DOWN BEFORE A RACE AND FIGURE OUT STRATEGY OR DOES IT DEPEND HOW THE RACE DEVELOPS? "Sometimes it depends on how the race develops, but Goodyear has a good tire this year. We don't have any problems with the tire Goodyear has, but I think the key factor is the competition is so tough that track position is more important than actually putting on four new tires."

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TRAVEL SCHEDULE? "The big thing is getting the hauler back from California. It'll probably get back here Tuesday and the crews will get back probably Monday morning on the airplane. They'll have Monday off to rest and maybe Tuesday we'll be working, but it usually takes about a day-and-a-half because we're on the red-eye flight coming back where we're up all day and all night. It takes a while for your body to get rested up for Richmond, so probably Wednesday we'll be back at full force when the truck gets back."

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE TRAVEL MORE GEOGRAPHICALLY BALANCED? "No matter what, we've still got to come home to the base. We've still got to come back to our shop and re-load the vehicles because Richmond takes an entirely different car than we run at California and Talladega is different than California. You still have to come back to your base and re-stock your truck, so there's really no way out of it."

Text provided by Greg Shea

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