Mark loves the Roush Racing team surrounding him and loves the way his
Fords are running.Happy with his crew, happy with his cars, you'd almost expect Mark to be giddy with anticipation heading into the Pop Secret 500 this weekend at California Speedway. But then, a happy Mark wouldn't really be Mark at all.
Even if he's happy, Mark refuses -- at least publicly -- to feel too good about things. That's not his nature; never has been, never will be.
Mark aptly summed up his outlook on racing following a recent second-place finish at Michigan. It's a race he seemingly could have won if not called back into the pits by a NASCAR inspector for what the inspector determined was a loose, or missing, lug nut.
That he raced back through the field for second was impressive, though hardly surprising given Mark's tenacious demeanor. Nor was his reaction surprising when someone asked if he believed his team was peaking just in time to qualify for the Chase For The Nextel Cup.
"That's your story. Please don't drag me into all that [type of talk]. You know I can't stand over-optimistic people," Mark said with a laugh before adding. "Don't make me hate myself."
Mark laughed again, but his perspective is understandable considering the near misses in his career when it comes to winning the championship at NASCAR's highest level.
"If you start [saying we're peaking] and we start blabbing all that stuff and I don't make that cut, then I'm only left with a broken heart," Mark said. "Right now I'm planning on not being broken hearted if that happens, but go down with a fight. That's my style. That's the way I want to do this thing. I want to go down slugging as hard as I can and if it doesn't work out, then I don't want to be broken hearted. I've had enough of those."
Still, Mark headed to Bristol feeling good about his team and that attitude undoubtedly helped him get over a self-inflicted wound that ruined what could have been a top-five finish. A mistake exiting pit road dropped Mark to 13th at night's end and left him 12th in points, only 35 out of 10th with just two races remaining before the Chase field is set.
"We have a top-five race team and if I wind up being a spectator at the banquet, so be it," Mark says. "I have to look at things from a positive standpoint and say, 'Golly, at least we didn't run 14th every week and make it in.' I'd much rather not make the cut and [run in the front]. That's real special to me. I've always said that that is the glue that keeps a winning team together."
Mark may do a great job of keeping his optimism in check, but it's hard not to consider him a factor heading to California Speedway, a track similar -- but not really identical -- to Michigan. Still, the similarities are enough that the team's using the car that finished second at Michigan.
"We are just going to go out and try our best to do what we've been doing," he says. "We've been trying to win races for as long as I've been here and we are going to keep trying to win races. We'll try our hardest at California to win (and) we'll try just as hard at Richmond. But you know what, even if we don't make this top-10 thing, we are going to try just as hard to win the next week at Loudon and the next week at wherever we go after that. That is what we do -- we try to win. Don't get me wrong; I want to be in that top-10 and I want to be able to race for the championship -- who doesn't?
"But I'll tell you the truth, no matter what happens it won't take away from what this race team has done. We've been a top-five team and we've run up front in a lot of races and I can't tell you how grateful I am for that."
Mark will likely need something close to another top-five if he's to work his way into the top 10 and this track hasn't been one of his bests. Sure he won there in 1998, but he's got just two top-fives and three top-10 finishes in his eight starts.
A top-10 appeared to be in the works back in May, but Mark ran out of gas
on the last lap and ended the day 11th. Of course, he was going to end up
13th if other cars hadn't had their own fuel problems, so the finish wasn't
all that bad in the grand scheme of things.Still, it probably won't be enough this time around, a fact not lost on Mark or crew chief Pat Tryson.
"We've been pretty good on those types of tracks this season, especially over the past couple of months," Mark says. "We ran really well at Michigan two weeks ago and those are similar tracks. Pat and the guys have done such a wonderful job of giving me strong cars and hopefully we'll have another one this weekend."
Tryson, a standout college linebacker at Division II West Chester (Pa.) University, brings a football player's mentality to the team, seemingly making him the perfect fit for the tenacious Mark. That intensity was evident while arguing the call that cost Mark at Michigan.
Now, though, Tryson's much more concerned about making the Michigan car just as fast at Fontana.
"We are ready," Tryson says. "& I'm proud of the guys and the effort that this entire Viagra Team has put in. We are going to pull together another couple of strong runs and get ourselves inside that top 10 after Richmond. Hopefully we can get that started with a win at California."
While much has been made this week of Rusty Wallace's impending retirement after next season, there's a good chance 2005 will mark Mark's final Nextel Cup season as well. Mark, though, is keeping quiet about such news, however, preferred to focus on the season at hand.
Mark has long hinted he'd retire when his current contract expires after next season, but owner Jack Roush and team president Geoff Smith are hoping he has a change of heart. If so, though, Mark likely won't announce that for some time.
For now, he's too busy trying to fight his way into the top 10 -- even if he's trying not to get too excited about the prospects.
Mark Ashenfelter is an associate editor at NASCAR Scene magazine and a contributor to ESPN.com
