Cup tour.Rambunctious and tempestuous during his early years.
Moody and sometimes glum during his middle years, even when the wins came frequently.
Then came the seasons of pain - back pain, knee pain, excruciating pain that he tried to keep out of sight and out of mind ... until he finally acceded to the surgeon.
Now, at 42, there is yet another Mark on the stock-car trail. A Mark with not just a smile but also a grin and a renewed attitude of almost defiantly feisty optimism.
Yet, Mark is mired in a bit of a slump, along with the rest of his Roush teammates. Only one, Jeff Burton, has won, at Charlotte in May. Mark hasn't won since last April, and that win was somewhat improbable at Martinsville, long one of his most dreaded tracks.
Mark's best finishes this season were fourths at Talladega and Charlotte in the spring.
But Mark insists that he is, if anything, a patient man, and an optimistic one. Monday he led 33 laps of the Old Dominion 500, a race in which hard tires and 13 caution flags and gambling crew chiefs combined for a strange afternoon. The race had 14 different leaders and ended with Ricky Craven's first Winston Cup victory.
"That makes three top 10s in a row," Mark said after finishing seventh. "And that was as fast a car as I've ever had here at times."
Nevertheless, the man who made the Winston Cup championship a quest for so many years seems further than ever from that finish line. With six races left, he's 907 points behind leader Jeff Gordon and 11th in the standings, trying to catch teammate Jeff Burton for 10th. If he doesn't, Mark will miss the awards banquet for the first time since his 1988 debut with Jack Roush.
Yet throughout a season of discontent - at the sluggish pace of development within his team, and at the too rapid pace of technological development within the sport - Mark has seldom been without that new grin.
Perhaps that's because his son, Matt, has given him a new outlook on life. Certainly Mark's perspective on the sport is changing ... but he gets angry if anyone questions his desire.
"There have been some things written this year that have hurt my feelings," Mark said. "But I'm telling you right now - do not question my commitment or my will. Because it's the same as it always has been. And it will continue to be, because that's me.
"I want to try to paint a little picture for you. My son is racing. I love my son more than anything in the world, so I enjoy talking about him, and I'm also incredibly proud.
"We were at the race track a few months ago, and in between his heat race and the features, he got kicked in the eye. It almost swelled shut, and he was almost in tears and everything. His mother and I tried to get him to go home, but he said that he wanted to race.
"He drove the race, and then we took him home. So it was a very tough night. Racing deals you all kinds of blows. You have to race when you're physically in pain, mentally in pain and emotionally in pain. The real winners race through all of that....
"That's commitment. That's a 9-year-old's commitment.
"If you ever thought what that commitment would be like at 42, you need to take a look at me ... because that's a drop in the bucket.
"That's a 9-year-old's commitment. That hasn't had 34 years to develop.
"So whether you've ever questioned whether I've driven the race car in major pain physically, emotionally or whatever, you need to think back about it a little bit."
Commitment, Mark says, is a commandment for him: "My commitment is that I believe when you have a broken bone, when you're sick as a dog, or when you have a death in the family, you still test, you still practice, you qualify, and then you race.
"The priority will never shift until that commitment goes away.
"I can't tell you when that day is. But I can tell you that it won't come for quite some time, because most people don't have a commitment by an owner, by a team and by a sponsor that reaches as far as mine does. I have a longer-term commitment than most people in the Winston Cup garage have ... which has been confused, I think somewhat, by some of the media."
That's a contract to drive through at least 2005.
But is Mark still having fun at this?
"For me winning is fun, and the winning that I've been experiencing this year has been through my son, and not through myself. Matt has won more races than I have this year.
"But I don't race for fun, and I never have...."
The season has been quite difficult, clearly, but Mark has been bearing up quite well, despite the frustrations. He seems to be patiently awaiting his time.
"It's just we've had a year where we weren't as competitive on the race track as we've been in the past," he said. "I understand that, but I haven't been able to give the media the answers to why. But I wouldn't have to answer that if I knew why."
One difference now, Mark says, is the tremendous surge in sponsorship money.
"Ten years ago a race team might have been 15 people. Now a race team might be 100 people," Mark says. "But that has done some very positive things: It's offered opportunities to so many young people who want to get into motor sports."
That, Mark says, bodes well for Matt, who hopes to have a Truck or Busch ride by age 16.
"There are so many young drivers that are going to get into this thing at an earlier age than ever before, with more raw talent and more experience than ever before," Mark says. "And for me that's incredibly exciting."
Of course, that's a two-edged sword for Mark. "Some of my peers would probably be much happier to hold those (younger drivers) down and keep them away as long as they could," Mark says. "But I'm not threatened by that.
"Even though they may be young and brave, they still have to hit the wall enough to put it all together. That bravery will cost you. It makes you go faster, but it also makes you hit the concrete more.
"They still have to put the finishes together, and that takes time."
And time, Mark feels, is still on his side.
