Mark doesnt feel sorry for anybody. It's his job to go out and
win, not finish second, third or anywhere but first. He's been
beaten before, and nobody's bothered to fret about it, so
why should he? Cold? Maybe. But that's just the way Mark is
about racing."These guys can beat me, especially short-track racing," Mark says "I can be had, because I don't use the latest stuff. I don't use the equipment. My cars are heavy. We don't build light race cars. I don't know that stuff. I don't trust that stuff. We don't need to be on the cutting edge of technology."
Everything's fallen into place for crew chief Tony Lambert and Mark, who's running his last Busch campaign.
"It's easy," Mark says, and leaves the explanation of how his team can be so good at that until prodded a bit.
"We have great race engines," Mark continues, almost reluctantly. "I know exactly what kind of chassis I'm gonna run. I'm not gonna run what everybody else wins with. "I'm gonna run what I run. I don't mess with anything else. I know exactly what I've run every year for 13 years for springs and shocks."
"I have someone that pays attention to the aerodynamics and to the reliability of the cars. We run extremely reliable parts, not the newfangled, lightweight, faster stuff, but the bulletproof stuff. My guys pay attention to the pit stops. When you've got all that, it just flows."
That across-the-board combination is what makes Mark's program click, figures Busch Series Director John Darby.
"They've got a great crew. They've got a great engine program. They've got a great car. And they've got one of the best drivers that ever sat behind the steering wheel," Darby says. "There may be a Busch team that's got better engines, but they might be missing the great crew. They might have the best engine and the best crew and a very good driver, but they might be missing something on the car."
"Once the momentum starts, you almost get invincible because other teams start to give up a little bit. We've still got the best core group of Busch teams that come to the track saying, 'We're gonna get that guy. We're gonna beat him.' But you get the other group that says, 'Man, we're here to race for second.' When the teams start doing that, they're giving up the attitude and drive to beat Mark.
Winston Cup drivers have almost always won their share of Busch Series races, but in 1998 and '99, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth made the task much more difficult. Now that Earnhardt and Kenseth have moved on, there's something missing again, but it's a cycle where Jeff Burton thinks other Busch Series teams will soon catch up to himself and Mark.
"For Mark to make it look easy, no, that is not good for the Busch Series, but I don't think I'll say it that way," says
Burton, who inherited the March 4 win at Las Vegas when Mark
had to check up to avoid a spinning car late in the race.
"If I thought it would stay that way, then, hell, it wouldn't
be any fun. It's more fun when it's hard. It's hard right now,
but it was harder last year. I think the Busch teams will
get better than they are now."There's one suggestion that angers Mark, and that's the whisper that sometimes crops up about how he and his team go outside the rulebook to achieve their success.
"I certainly don't think anybody thinks that I would cheat to win a Busch race." Mark says flatly "Anybody who knows me knows that I don't need to win another Busch race as long as I live. Any of 'em that are any good over there know that I haven't cheated to win."
"I don't think that any of 'em that are any good have said that They can have our stuff. Our stuff is for lease. I've raced against my cars. Our crew chief's out there, and if they want to know what we're doing so bad, enough money will hire Tony, probably."
"All I can say is let 'em take everything they can take out of that car except the seat," Lambert adds. "We're more legal than anybody out there. If we're caught cheating, they're gonna make an example out of us."
Todd Bodine and Randy Lajoie say it boils down to this: Mark is an awesome talent who drives a Ford that's got more horsepower, less drag and more balance than their Chevrolets. Those are extremely tough obstacles to overcome, and Bodine's Cicci-Welliver Racing outfit is trying its best to fight back. A recently announced working relationship with Hendrick Motorsports will help.
"Mark's probably one of the best drivers that's ever raced a NASCAR race car," Bodine says. You put him in a superior piece of equipment and you're not gonna beat him. It's hard enough to beat him on equal grounds. He's that good.
"We're not just sitting here crying about it. We're trying to
work on our stuff to make it better. Most people cry and yell
about it and want NASCAR to take away from them. We're not
doing that. We get better all the time, but it's gonna take
time."Bodine calls for NASCAR to give Chevrolet a full two inches of kickout on the front valence. That'd make his car as balanced, but it would still have more drag on the straightaways. That's a significant disadvantage on tracks a mile or more in length. Lajoie echoes the sentiment.
"I think you could take the top five Busch drivers, put 'em in that car and they'd do as well as he's done," Lajoi says. "Obviously from what they've seen in the wind tunnel, he's got better stuff than we've got. Their Fords don't look like the Fords that run regularly in the Busch series.
"They've got their stuff together. They use their Winston Cup technology. The Busch guys can be as good as that, but right now, we're not. It's just a tribute to that race team how good they are. They're on the deal."
In racing, and from Lajoie especially, being "on the deal" is the ultimate compliment. Another factor is that because Mark and Burton aren't running for points, they can afford to wring the very most out of their equipment.
"They're on the tilt," Lajoie says. "Not racing for points, that might mean five or 10 horsepower. How are you gonna make that up with a Mark Martin or a Jeff Burton behind the wheel?"
Burton says all of Mark's cars are built on stock BSR chassis, purchased from Billy Hess. The bodies on Mark's Fords are hung by people who do work for other teams. Burton's cars are built in-house, but again, he says other teams can purchase the same chassis, provided they're not copied in any way. Eight full-time employees prepare both his and Mark's Busch Series cars, in a shop he calls "primative by today's standards."
Still, Bodine's not buying Burton's parity routine."Jeff Burton made the comment, 'We don't have anything that anybody else can't get.' That's kind of a b.s. answer. That's just trying to cover it up," Bodine continues. "They've got probably 10 times as much wind tunnel time as any other Busch team. Just because their car hasn't been to the wind tunnel doesn't mean their wind tunnel technology didn't go into it from what they've learned off their Winston Cup car"
Burton, though, insists the situation is just the opposite - Roush Racing's Winston Cup technology doesn't work when applied to its Busch Series program.
"When we try to put our Cup program into the Busch program, the further we get behind on our Busch program. I don't know why that is. I guess it's the body location rules, the horsepower," Burton says. "Our philosophy of racing in the Cup cars does not work in the Busch cars. That doesn't make sense to me."
Mark's Busch series testing is at a bare minimum. He tested once last year, at Richmond, and he plans to shake down a car at Charlotte that's been ready since last year, but he's adamant about not racing it. Why? Mark's already got a car that's race-proven, so he sees absolutely no reason to gamble on new equipment.
Mark knows what he wants.
"I have a car that I like, and I won't run the new one because I don't know if I like it or not," Mark says. I don't want to waste a race on it. I've done all my running in '99 and so far this year, basically, on two cars. I just use stuff I know, and I don't test."
"I appreciate that they bought new parts, and that they've worked real hard over the winter turning (the unused car) into a 2000. It sits there and it's all beautiful, looks great, but just because it's new doesn't mean that it's more functional than the car that I've been winning with."
Roush Racing's Busch Series shop had been in Liberty, N.C. - but when team owner Jack Roush moved it to Mooresville during the 1998-99 offseason, then-crew chief Bobby Leslie chose to stay near the former location and work on the organization's Winston Cup side, and several crew members either did the same or found other jobs. That left Lambert to hand-pick most of Mark's current team, and he says it's now a close-knit group.
"Everybody's worked together for a year," Lambert says. "Last year was out first year together. There were some mistakes, miscues, bad calls. This year Mark's more comfortable with us and we're more comfortable with him. Starting with him last year, it was like he's a superstar and we're just nobodies. We had big shoes to fill."
Summing up Mark in a single word is simple for Lambert. It's
called "intense," and maybe more so this season than last.
Mark suffered excruciating back pain during the 1999 campaign
in silence. Offseason surgery worked wonders."This year he is more outgoing," Lambert says. "I don't think he's in pain as much as he was last year. He didn't tell people. He never even told me about the pain he was in. Between last year and this year, it's unbelievable the difference in him."
"Before, he was like, 'The car's doing this. You need to try this,' and he'd leave. This year he'll sit and explain where it's tight and where it's loose. That helps a bunch."
To Darby, it's not a concern that Mark has been so throughly in control of the series this year. It'll come back around.
"If a competitor shows up and the car meets the rulebook, the engine meets the engine rules and they go through the same inspection process that the rest ofthe garage is put through, then NASCAR has to sit back and say, 'That guy is good,' more than 'Something's wrong, because nobody's that good.'
They didn't suspend Michael Jordon because he was such a good basketball player. Every good athlete hits their moment, and right now in the Busch Series, Mark's on top of his game. He's not invincible by any means. I believe before this year's over, he'll be beatable. The Busch teams are catching up more and more.
