Mark thought he had cured a mounting schedule of agony
he had endured for years through constant, excruciating pain
in his back, when he underwent surgery over the winter.Mark, driver of Jack Roush's No. 6 Valvoline Ford and a perennial championship contender, had begun to feel himself slipping back into a pained state, and coming into this weekend's thatlook.com 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway, he was definitely concerned.
That was a source of considerable irony, considering a year ago he had come to NHIS suffering from wrist, leg and rib injuries incurred in a wreck at Daytona International Speedway the previous weekend.
Well, Mark finished fourth at Daytona in NASCAR 2000 and qualified third for Sunday's 1 p.m. ET 300-lap race. It's amazing what something as simple as a strong running race car can do.
"It's doing much better," Mark said of his back on Friday. "I'm still moving kind of deliberate and slow, but the pain has subsided. It still is probably hindered me -- or I'm careful about what I'm doing -- but it's doing a lot better. I'm very pleased."
Not one to be trivial about anything in his life, Mark admitted to a bit of human stubbornness in his latest bout with discomfort.
"Evidently I had irritated a muscle and maybe inflamed it and created some nerve irritation as well -- so I'm getting kind of a double whammy there," tough guy Mark said of his most recent experience with pain. "I'm feeling a whole lot better now. I've been kind of working at it this week. It had sort of deteriorated for a couple, three weeks and I didn't do anything about it."
"I've been icing it and doing a little bit of massage therapy on it and I'm real happy. It was a good day today. A great race car, great teamwork."
"I feel good, as far as that goes. That part of it is good."
And that's a good thing for Mark. Coming into the race track where he has seven top-5 finishes including three seconds; he faces a situation where he is seventh in the NASCAR Winston Cup point standings, 244 points behind leader Bobby Labonte. Now would be a good time to get on his horse and ride, and Mark's ready for that.
"I don't think you realistically expect a champion to have
five races in a season that go bad for you and we had five
in a row," Mark said of his first half dismay. "We've come
back and had two top-5s in a row and, hopefully, we can
continue that and we can wrestle our way back somewhere.""Out of all the great race teams and drivers out there, somebody is gonna have a better year than that. We got off to a better start than ever and had a spring like we've never had -- just bad luck."
Mark is stepping into Sunday's race at NHIS knowing he needs to run well, if not actually win.
"I wish that I could say we're gonna go out and just race to win each race," Mark said with a shrug. "Well, heck, we do that anyway when we're racing for a championship. The only thing I hope it does is take some of the stress out of racing for me."
"When you're racing for the championship it's extremely stressful and every point counts in every way. You lose 10 points and you lose a night of sleep over it. What we can do now is just go out and race and try to win races and do the same thing we've done in the past."
"In the past 10 years we haven't always been a championship contender, we've just been a top-fiver and, hopefully, that's what we're gonna be again this year." Like his battle with pain, that has only made Mark buckle down even harder.
"No matter how bad it gets all that does is make me more determined," Mark said of his ignorance of pain. "The worse I hurt, the harder it is. The more devastating the situation, the more determined I get, and I give it everything I have."
"Misery probably makes me more determined, yes. That might be a shame -- I don't know -- but adversity typically gets a determined response from me. It always has. I've always stood up to it, whether it was being bullied by somebody I couldn't handle, or whatever. It's always sort of forced me, maybe not rise to the occasion, but it's sort of pulled everything that I have."
Mark said the biggest thing the recent bout with pain might do is make him rethink his career.
"I'm the kind of guy that will always do what I said I would do," Mark said. "I signed a piece of paper that said I'll drive these cars for five years, (and) I'll drive 'em five years."
"I might not continue after that -- I can't say. But this is a demanding sport and we all get real tired and we all get beat up from time to time. I don't have the kind of problems that I had last year, but I am having to be real careful right now to keep from getting myself in an irritated state with my back."
"That means like moving slowly and deliberately and not giving my lower back any surprises."
One thing that does not mean, to Mark's great delight, is that he doesn't cut his workout schedule down.
"No, that's all deliberate," he said of the physical exertion involved in his rigorous and methodical workout schedule. "The things that get me are the things that my back doesn't see coming, like bending over."
"The biggest thing is sleeping. I've had some problems from time to time sleeping real well. I used to sleep on my stomach. I got on my stomach last night because I didn't sleep sound enough that I was looking for the spot and that sets me back. I've got to try to stay off of it, try to stay on my side because sleeping on my back or stomach is not best."
Mark remains philosophical through the whole ordeal.
"There were never any guarantees where the nerves were gonna be as far as giving me pain," he said of his life following surgery. "Sometimes it's awesome and sometimes it bothers me -- so does my knee."
"I broke my knee and it'll never be the same I'm sure, so there are just certain things in life I can't do anymore. That's the way it goes."
