Just when you thought it finally was safe to let the kids watch NASCAR, along comes news that Viagra will sponsor Mark's stock car next season.
Pfizer, which produces the male-potency drug, will spend
$14 million a year to advertise its provocative product on
Mark's Ford Taurus for the next five years. The suggestive
jokes and one-liners are sure to follow.The irony of his new sponsor is not lost on Mark. He knows he's getting older. He knows he can't do all things that he used to do. He knows he's not a carefree, wild-and-crazy kid anymore.
"The sport takes a bigger and bigger piece out of you all the time," admitted the 41-year-old Mark, in a rare, in-depth interview at Michigan Speedway. "And there's not as much left of me to do all that is required as there was before."
Mark is tired of the endless requests for interviews and autographs. Sponsors, reporters, fans - everyone, it seems, wants a piece of his time. He is tired of battling the ever-increasing crowds, trying to get out the race tracks on Sunday afternoon when the races are over. He is running out of gas, no pun intended.
"Ten years ago, we had maybe half as many people at each event," pointed out Mark, who wrecked one car on a wet track Friday morning trying to qualify for today's Busch race, then qualified seventh-fastest (189.619 mph) for Sunday's Winston Cup Pepsi 400. "It's just a bigger show now than it was."
Indeed, the crowd for Friday's two qualifying sessions, estimated at 45,000, was comparable to the turnout for CART's Michigan 500 last month.
"Every race means so much," Mark continued. "One little slip-up, one little accident, and you drag it around on your shoulders for a week. If something happens in a Winston Cup race that causes you to lose five points, you grouse about it for a week.
"You know it could cost you the championship. It could cost you money in the points race. And you know that sponsors won't be happy. It's just not that easy to walk away from a race anymore. The sport has become so big, and so much is riding on it, that it sucks all the fun out of it."
However, if he had his life to live over again, Mark wouldn't change a thing.
"I'm just a hillbilly from Arkansas," he acknowledged. "This is the American dream. This is what every kid wants to do. I've made it a lot further than I ever expected. "I never knew I was good enough to race against Richard Petty. And beat him. I never knew I could win all the Winston Cup races I've won. A lot of people would like to trade places with me."
Nevertheless, this will be the last year that Mark does double duty, competing on the Busch circuit whenever the schedule permits, in addition to the all-important weekly Winston Cup wars.
"It's gotten tougher on me every year," Mark admitted. "I used to say, 'There's nothing to it.' But there's a lot more to it now. I can't get out of one car and walk 100 yards at a leisurely pace to the other car. The series has grown. It's a lot more difficult. It's a really big commitment. The last couple years, it's gotten more and more intense. "I'm not easily distracted," Mark said. "I'm interested in so very little. I wish I had some other interests in this world. But I don't. When I'm not in the race car, I'm re-running the race in my mind, changing the springs or the shock absorbers or something. I've got a lot of car stuff constantly rolling around in my mind.
"Everybody I know who has been successful in this business has dedicated every minute of their life since they were teenagers to be good enough," he continued. "But it gets harder every year."
Mark's contract with Roush Racing runs through 2005. Mark figures that will be just about enough. "I don't expect I'll be racing a 40-race schedule after 2005," he predicted.
Meanwhile, there remains one nagging bit of unfinished business: The Winston Cup championship that Mark has never won. And as the new logo on his car next year will constantly remind him, the clock is ticking.
