garage, side by side. But the order is different from other
seasons. Yes, they're still lined up according to the points
standings, but you now have to walk a long way to find Mark.Mark is out of the top 10 in the Winston Cup points standings for the first time in nearly 12 years.
"It could be humiliating, if you let it," he said when found inside his blue and white truck, parked far down the line in the 18th position. "I judge it off the performance and the effort I give. I can't control the result. ... I can't let my self-esteem ride on where I finish every week.
"I'm 42 years old and I just learned that this year."
Mark hunches his shoulders and makes self-deprecating remarks about how he's "not very smart" and how, "I sure can't brag about maturing early."
Today, he will start 18th in the MBNA Platinum 400 and hopes this will be his day. He loves Dover Downs International Speedway's 1-mile high-banked oval. There aren't many drivers who would list Dover as their favorite racetrack, but Mark does.
This is where his car owner, Jack Roush, first noticed him as a Busch Grand National driver and gave him a second chance at Winston Cup. He has won three times here since 1997, and his car was the fastest in practice Friday.
"We have to keep making the car better for Mark," said Mark's crew chief, Jimmy Fennig. "But Mark is good at this racetrack and this is a good chance for him to win."
The first third of this season has been filled with mishaps. He was running pretty well at the Daytona 500 at the start of the season, but got caught up in a wreck and finished 33rd.
"If I had gotten through that wreck, I would have finished ninth, and we would have been off to a good start," Mark said. "It's that easy. But I got in the wreck. It really is almost that simple. Then, at Rockingham [N.C.], we made a mistake in the pits and finished 23rd. At Vegas, we ran pretty good, led a lot of laps, finished sixth and moved up to 13th in points and it looked like we were turning the corner.
"But then the engine blew up at Atlanta and we finished 41st. Those four races pretty much explain how our season has gone: a wreck, a blowup, a choke and a good run and that set the tone."
It's not what Mark and his Roush team are used to. Nor is it what the public is used to seeing from Mark, who has been a perennial challenger for the Winston Cup Championship. And, so, he sits in his truck and when the odd reporter - "There is less media wanting to talk to me, too," he said - drops by, he said he braces himself for the inevitable question about how disappointed is he that he hasn't yet won the title.
"I know they have to ask," he said. "I know what they're looking for. But I wish one time someone would come in the door and say, 'Mark, you've won 22 ASA [American Speed Association] races, four ASA championships, four IROC [International Race of Champions] championships - in seven years you've never finished worse than second in IROC - you've won 32 Winston Cup races and I don't know how many poles. You know, that's amazing.'
"But, even to me, it's not near enough, but it's as good as I could do. Should I apologize? I understand there is another side. Yeah, I never won a Winston Cup championship. It's frustrating to me."
And yet, in this season of disappointment, Mark is happier than he has been in a long time. It's an amazing discovery because even in the best of times, Mark always appears to be a tortured man. He's the one who wins a race and in the post-race interviews laments, "You never know if you're ever going to win again."
"Everyone has a self-preservation mechanism. It just takes some people longer to use it," he said. "Rather than self-destructing, and I could see that could happen, I couldn't let it ruin my life. I realized that through all the things I've accomplished, I've never put the emphasis on enjoying any of it."
But now, despite not winning in 38 races dating to April 2000 in Martinsville, Va., Mark's new philosophy combined with less demands for his time have given him something he hasn't had in his adulthood.
"I'm not enjoying taking a whipping on the track, but on the pro side, I have a life off the racetrack," he said. "That's the positive that has come with a bad season. And I've learned how to make a lot of things I used to view as pains, fun and exciting by sharing those times with others."
He points to a media day in Charlotte, N.C., recently that he would not normally have been overjoyed to attend, but because he took his son Matt, 9, and two of Matt's friends, he said, "It turned into a fun, exciting time because it was a big deal to them. In fact, it was more fun than anything I could have done at home."
And so he has resolved to be less private, to do more things with his family and friends.
Through the years, Mark has experienced enough hard times to have learned the value of life's little joys before this, but it is only now that he has come to understand their worth. Still, that doesn't mean he isn't eager to win again.
"I'm driven to win," he said. "My first Winston Cup win, I got out of the car at Rockingham and told everyone, 'My life is fulfilled,' and I meant it. I knew how hard it had been to win and it didn't matter to me if I ever won again. But now, I guess there is something wrong with me because I forget how hard it was to get that first win and I'm sorry to say it doesn't mean as much to me as my 32nd, which was my last win. And the 33rd will mean a whole lot more.
"There is nothing I love enough about racing to go through all the stuff we go through, if I didn't have a chance to win. I like being in front. That's why I do it."
Mark drew up every muscle in his body and shivered.
"Right now, we don't know if we've turned the corner and there is greatness or more misery in front of us," he said. "But this is a good racetrack for us, a racetrack I love, so let's go get 'em."
