He moves through the garage with a pained look, limping
slightly as he walks. He has worry wrinkles on his forehead,
piercing eyes and a smile that looks uncomfortable at best.It's no secret. Mark seems miserable.
But he's not mean or mad or upset. The grouchiness is part of him.
“I don't think I've ever seen him totally happy,” said Jack Roush, Mark's team owner for 13 years. “He's always got a challenge or a goal this is borderline unattainable that he's reaching for. If somebody like that is totally happy with their situation, well they might not get out of bed in the morning.”
Certainly, Mark doesn't have problems getting out of bed. The 41-year-old rises before dawn.
He has plenty to do and a lot to go after. He lifts weights at his house in Daytona Beach. He deals with his business affairs. He thinks about racing. But his priorities have changed.
Mark, is under contract to race with Roush Racing through 2005. He signed a multiyear deal, reportedly worth $15 million annually, with the pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, where he will be a spokesman for men's health. The deal starts next year and his car will feature the drug Viagra.
But when those commitments are over, Mark may retire.
Life, it seems, has become too complicated. Too many things to do. Not enough time. Too much love lost.
So Mark's perspective on the world is changing, particularly after his father, his nephew and a close friend died in the past two years.
“I've seen too much,” said Mark. “I've seen people losing
people they love, and I haven't been able to be there for
them. I just feel rotten about that.“When you get caught in about two or three of these things (deaths), pretty soon you think, `Darn, how long do I want to do this? I mean, I've done it since I was 15. How long do I really want to do this?”'
As Mark moves toward retirement, he's trying to deal with failure better. And he has been forced to deal with it a lot lately, considering he is seventh in points at the season's halfway mark. He has been a perennial championship contender over the years, not finishing worse than sixth since 1988.
This year, though, Mark said he's not losing sleep over his woes on the racetrack. He's trying to convince himself that the good things in life cancel out the bad.
“Just feeling the love for my family,” he said. “That, to me, is a fun that makes me feel good and makes my heart smile—because I've had so little of that.”
What does keep Mark awake, however, is his bad back. He had surgery in November, but the pain remains. It hurts when he bends over or sleeps funny. His left knee bothers him, too. He broke his kneecap during practice for last year's Pepsi 400, where he also fractured his left wrist.
Typical Mark, he raced with that unbearable pain. It's that misery—and conquering it—that motivated him.
“He would have suffered through it without any complaints, but the news got out,” said teammate Jeff Burton, who is Mark's close friend. “Right now, I see him trying even harder not to let things drive him down. There are things more important than what goes on at the racetrack and he's struggling with that.”
There are so many feelings and issues swirling around Mark's head right now. He's hoping to sort them all out soon, including balancing life as a racecar driver with life as a father, husband, son, brother and friend. He has deemed it a Catch 22 because he's so committed to racing but his heart is leading him elsewhere.
Still, that doesn't change his will to win—and to grab that Winston Cup championship that has been so elusive. It's partly what keeps him so miserable.
“Driving the car is not fun to me,” he said. “Being the best is.”
