If Dale Earnhardt is the Intimidator in Winston Cup, Mark is surely
the Dominator in the Busch Series. He has controlled this series
almost from the moment he first unloaded a race car to compete in it.
When Mark is in the field, other Busch drivers hang their heads, look
at the ground and admit that second place is the best they
are liable to get.He wins so often, Mark's advantage is part psychological - the guys he races against feel as if they are beaten before the race begins. A man who believes he is about to be beaten probably will be.
Mark won the race at Texas, of course. It was his fourth win in five starts. He finished second in the other start, and only an evasive move to avoid a spinning car prevented him from going five-for-five.
Mark has won more Busch races than any other driver: 44 wins in 192 starts. That's 22.5%, or almost one in four.
Most of Mark's Busch Series wins have come in Jack Roush cars, which he began racing in 1993. Through the Texas victory, Mark has won 37 times in 107 starts for Roush, 35%. That kind of percentage in racing is like a big league ball player hitting .400. To Mark's competition, it is both an enviable and demoralizing record.
Although he annually blows the other guys away, some years are better than others. In both '96 and '97, Mark won more races than anyone else in the series, even though he skipped about half the schedule. Need more? Of the 14 races he started in 1996, Mark led every one.
Mark's first Busch Series win came in only his 10th start,
the May 30, 1987 race at Dover. He won two other starts that season
and also earned six poles. So this stuff of winning, winning,
winning is nothing new. It's just Mark's record got bigger after
he joined Jack Roush.Teamwork and a stable crew are often given credit when a racer achieves extraordinary success. But Mark's longtime crew chief, Bobby Leslie, and many crew members departed when Roush moved the team before the '99 season. No matter - Mark kept right on winning, taking home the checkered flag in six of 14 starts that year with a new supporting cast. Stone-faced Mark explained: "I really know Busch Grand National cars and understand them and their setups. As a result, I'm not as vunerable {to the vagaries of crew changes}. I still need good pit stops and cars that finish."
He races Busch Series cars only on combined Winston Cup weekends, when he can't entirely focus on either the Busch car or the Winston Cup car. While running two divisions at the same track on the same weekend can be an advantage, by definition each effort is also a distraction from the other. Mark has decided the Busch distraction must go. At age 41, time is running out to win a Winston Cup championship. He's been incredibly close, having finished second three times and third twice in the chase for the Winstob Cup trophy, but he's never won it. Although he's said he doesn't need the championship for his life to be complete, and he has said, in fact, that he doesn't know if he's "good enough" to win it, surely the championship and a win in the Daytona 500 are the two sparkling jewels that are missing from Mark's newly enlarged 20' X 20' trophy case.
Mark needs nothing more to win Busch races than cars that are well prepared, that don't break down and that come to the track ready to race. Cars that come with his setups. The cars aren't anything special. No high-horsepower motors or trick suspensions here.
"Tony Lambert {his current crew chief} is spectacular at delivering aerodynamic, well-prepared cars," Mark said. "He always brings good engines. Before him, Bobby Leslie was also very good at delivering what I wanted."
Ask the man who owns Mark's team and Jack Roush will tell you that Mark has an extraordinary feel for Busch cars, that they suit his style perfectly.
"I don't like wheelspin," Mark said. Busch cars, because of
a restrictive 390 c.f.m carburetor, are far less likely to
break loose under hard throttle than the Winston Cup cars. That
good grip under his butt is Mark's pleasure. So here we have an
extraordinary driver in a division whose rules exactly fit
his style with cars set up to his liking, cars that never break
down. Bingo - you have the most successful driver is series history.Steve Hmiel, who brought Mark to Roush back in 1988, has said he thinks Mark is quite simply "the best driver out there." Bobby Leslie has said the same as has Mark's teammate Jeff Burton. So the explanation for those extraordinary Busch numbers is actually quite ordinary. Mark is the best driver in the series. Period.
Generally, stock car crowds don't like drivers who win too much. To express their displeasures, fans toss chicken bones, boos, and catcalls. Yet, despite his record-breaking success in the Busch Series, Mark is consistently cheered. Fans love him and let him know about it with their applause. Perhaps the crowds who voice approval in such unison realize they are watching history being made.
The team's goal is 10 wins in this final Busch season, which would make it Mark's best year yet. Year 2000 is your last chance to see Mark run in this series he has dominated. It's a performance you should not miss. Catch this act before the final curtain falls.
