In fact, Mark will tell you that winning - or losing - the
Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday night at Charlotte is not a main concern.
The race is only part of life's journey.If he ever scores another victory, Mark says, "I don't know when that is going to be. I may never win another race, and that's OK."
Instead, Mark is relishing other slices of his life. The racing feats of his young son Matt are of more consequence. The 9-year-old is running midgets at New Smyrna, Fla., near Mark's Daytona Beach home.
"I've worked as hard as I could and have given everything I have to my career," Mark said. "Today, I am doing something different."
Mark has won 32 Winston Cup races in a career that stretches back more than a dozen years. The most recent came at Marksville last season.
"There have been times in my career when people thought that I was really at the top of my game," said Mark, who has finished 10 seasons ranked in the top five of the Winston Cup standings. "That is an honor and a blessing. If it happens again, I will enjoy it. If it doesn't, I haven't been a failure. That's how I deal with all of this."
What "all of this" is, is another subpar season by Mark's standards. He has led every race this season in the No. 6 Ford but has only one top-five finish, when he ran fourth in the Talladega 500.
Three wrecks and a blown motor put Mark out of four races. He comes to Charlotte ranked 21st in the standings.
This season is in many ways a continuation of last season. Mark finished eighth in the standings last season, his worst showing since he joined Roush Racing in 1988.
It has not always been this way for the racer called the greatest driver never to have won a Winston Cup championship. Three times, Mark has been the runner-up, twice to Dale Earnhardt and then to Jeff Gordon in 1998, a year when Mark had seven victories.
"We've been fortunate enough to hit the bull's-eye a number of times," said Mark, who has won more than $25 million in racing.
Roush Racing teammate Jeff Burton said, "If Mark Mark never wins a championship, he is still a great driver."
Mark stopped running events in NASCAR's Grand National series last season. He left with 45 career victories, that circuit's all-time leader.
His Winston Cup contract with Roush runs through 2005. "I'm satisfied with the effort I have put out and the results that I have," Mark said. "The kind of respect you have is earned week in and week out. What I have has been earned that way. I've learned to measure my self-worth based off the effort, not the result. I've come a long way with that."
