Mark woke up alone in a $2-million motor home on Father's Day, nearly a thousand miles from his wife and son.
Solitude is a sacrifice made on his own terms. All the days the rest of us
bookmark in our lives -- birthdays, anniversaries, funerals -- are merely a
flip of the calendar page for Mark. It has been like this for 30 years.Mark is a stock-car racer. All the other labels -- husband, father, businessman -- are relevant, but nothing compromises the commitment to his profession.
"When my father died in '98, I didn't get to stay," Mark said, taking a reflective pause from surfing the Internet on a computer in his motor home early last Sunday. "They had his funeral on Wednesday so I could be at the race track Wednesday night and be ready to get to the race car on Thursday morning."
Mark's friends and associates unequivocally consider him a doting husband and a wonderful father, but the life Mark has chosen judges a man only by the tick of a stopwatch. Only 43 guys get to do this every weekend, juggling NASCAR's whirlwind circuit of 38 races.
A racing schedule has run Mark's life for 30 years. The driver from Batesville, Ark., has established a solid résumé, winning 34 Nextel/Winston Cup races and finishing second in the championship points chase four times.
Now 45, Mark cherishes every one of those moments. But every one is etched in sacrifice. As his career winds down and Mark grows more introspective, he takes inventory and faces some disconcerting truths.
"I don't have time to have friends," he said. "You come to an understanding that you are so consumed by something that you don't have time for personal relationships beyond your crew chief, guys who work on your car, and maybe your wife and kids.
"It takes time to maintain a relationship. I could be very best friends with Bobby Labonte, but if we talk to each other for two minutes once a week, how good of friends are you really?"
Making sacrifices
False impressions easily are made. People only get a glimpse of the motor coach sequestered in the infield of a race track, or hear the roar of a helicopter taking drivers to a private jet minutes after each race is over. They assume that racetracks are easy streets paved in fame and fortune.
Mark makes no apologies for any of his perks -- including the motor coach and a six-passenger Cessna Citation jet -- but folks tend to focus on the highlights and gloss over everything else.
Financially broken in the spring of 1983, Mark posted an auction notice on a race team he began building as a 15-year-old, selling everything he owned -- cars, tools, trailers.
He got bounced back to the American Speed Association (ASA) circuit and had to re-establish his credibility, a process that would take more than two years. The majority of drivers who get dropped from the Cup series never make it back, but Mark was resolute.
"All I knew was racing," Mark said, "so I had to make a living racing."
He won the ASA title in 1986 and started one Cup race in '87 before returning to the Cup series for a full-time ride with Jack Roush in '88.
Mark thrived under Roush's tutelage -- finishing third in the points race in
1989 and second in '90 -- but more challenges would have to be overcome in
subsequent years.Nearly crippled by a deteriorating vertebra in his lower back, Mark had bone-graft surgery in November 1999 yet was back racing for the start of the 2000 season at Daytona.
"I found what I was good at and I pursued that ever since I was 15 years old with 100 percent of my heart and soul," Mark said. "And the reason I've been successful is that I've been willing to make more sacrifices, more compromises than most people that I raced against.
"But those results came at a price. I spent many a Thanksgiving at truck stops eating by myself, many a Christmas in a race shop working on cars. I did a lot of my own work. I made a lot of sacrifices, but it's what I wanted to do. I wanted to win. I don't regret it."
Sticking to a routine
Dressed in a Ford/Viagra polo shirt, blue jeans and sneakers, Mark sat inside his office/workout complex in a gated subdivision near Port Orange last Thursday. The Marks' property in Spruce Creek Fly In -- John Travolta also owns property in the subdivision -- is one of convenience and necessity, allowing Mark easy access to his jet.
Mark casually chatted with wife Arlene and business manager Benny Ertel, who will see him off on this morning. Son Matt, 12, is a rising talent in the sport and competes in the FASTRUCKS series at New Smyrna Speedway. A race is scheduled for Saturday, so Matt and Arlene will stay home while daddy goes to work.
Mark's pilot, Jason Simpson, arrives promptly before takeoff at 9:30 a.m. for the flight to Michigan for the DHL 400 Nextel Cup race. The time in the air provides brief escape from Mark's zoom-zoom world.
"My airplane is the ultimate in privacy for me, and my wife doesn't understand that," Mark said. "It's like that NASCAR 360 [a reality show on the FX network]. She didn't want them in our house.
"It would be more of an intrusion for them to be in my airplane than for them to be in my house. No one can mess with me in here."
It's a two-hours-and-change flight to Dearborn, Mich., for a promotional stop as part of his obligations to Ford, his car manufacturer, and the Roush Racing team. During the flight, Mark will steal some nap time and eat a packet of tuna and pretzels before arriving.
Once addicted to bad habits -- alcohol and fast food -- Mark has become consumed with all things healthy. Admittedly obsessive and compulsive, Mark now channels that energy toward a four-day workout schedule that begins at 5:30 a.m. in his office/training complex in Spruce Creek.
Monday is cardio day. Shoulders and triceps on Tuesday. Legs on Wednesday. Chest and cardio on Thursday. A race counts as another cardio day. And there are daily abdominal exercises in which Mark hangs from a bar and brings his knees to his chest. He does three sets of 20.
"I don't mean this in an arrogant way whatsoever, but once you run your fingers over washboards and they snap when you run 'em over, you don't ever want to go back," Mark said.
At 5 feet 6 and 130 pounds, Mark is hardly the most imposing guy on the NASCAR circuit. But the attention he pays to his body is impressive.
He made that choice in 1989, five years after he married Arlene. They seemed like an odd pair at first. He was five years younger, and she was a recent divorcee with four children. She agreed to a meeting set up by Mark's sister Glenda but assumed she wouldn't like him and vice-versa.
"But . . .
"I liked her so much it didn't bother me when she had four kids," Mark said. "I was 25 and I didn't think I ever wanted to have kids, but love is so powerful that I dove right in."
Family time is rare
It has been a difficult journey of compromise, as Mark keeps reminding a
passenger seated across from him as the plane drifts deeper into the
clouds.He keeps missing those days that husbands and fathers cherish.
When Matt won his first quarter-midget race in Apopka in March 1999, Mark was preparing to race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Valentine's Day always brings conflict with preparations for the season-opening run at Daytona. Father's Day always coincides with a race-day weekend.
"Every Sunday spent like this is another one gone," Mark said.
Mark tries to squeeze in family time whenever possible. He took Matt to see Garfield the day before taking off for Michigan. But for every one of those moments, there also is regret.
He remembers taking Matt to Disney's Animal Kingdom once. One foot was on the parking-lot pavement when a fan screamed, "Mark Martin." It was like that every 10 minutes or so as they walked through the park. All he wanted was to share the moment with his son.
Mark hasn't returned, allowing Ertel or Arlene to take Matt to avoid the intrusion on family time.
Those demands soon will disappear. Mark didn't get into details, but those in his inner circle are preparing for another year of Nextel Cup beyond 2004, then maybe a two- or three-year part-time spin on the less-demanding Craftsman Truck Series circuit.
Mark then will be able to set schedules more on his terms. He looks forward to that day.
"It's at a point in our lives where it would be better if it was less," he said. "There will come a point where enough is enough."
Then, he will awaken on Father's Day to see the smile on Matt's face instead of a crowd of strangers filing into a racetrack to catch the latest show in NASCAR's circus of speed.
