Looking at Mark Martin's 8th place finish in the point
standings, it might not appear to be disappointing to
an outsider, or rookie race fan. But for Martin, it
was the worst finish in the final points tally since
1988 - the year he entered Winston Cup full-time.
In fact, he hasn't finished outside the top-five in
points in the past seven years.Of course Mark's long time fans know that he had a horrible year, and so does the team. But upon close examination, Mark's season wasn't really that bad - he just had a few strings of very bad finishes that put his championship hopes in the damper.
The Roush Racing Valvoline Taurus was strong from the get-go at Daytona, a place where Roush entries have struggled in the past. But a lot of hard work and dedicated effort to their restrictor plate program paid off right out of the gate in 2000 when he finished 5th in the Daytona 500.
Mark was 8th the next weekend at Rockingham, and then tallied up two third place finishes in a row at Las Vegas and Atlanta. The Valvoline team was 2nd in the points and looking to once again contend for the championship.
The season continued to roll in a positive direction for the next three weeks until Mark broke things wide open with a win at Martinsville Speedway in April. Although not the fastest car that day, some clever pit strategy by crew chief Jimmy Fennig placed Martin in prime position to pick up the 32nd victory of his career.
It was late in the race at Martinsville, and Fennig and Mark had opted to pit early for fresh tires and run that set to the end. The leaders opted not to pit that time around, but a late race caution gave them a chance for fresh rubber. Mark, while running in the 8th position, stayed out on the track and took the lead.
"Where we were at, man, we had 16-17 cars on the lead lap and I was about halfway to the back of that line and I wasn't gonna go forward, so why not?
"It was a darn fast car in the lead there at the end on the last set of Goodyear tires. We didn't have a spectacular car, but it sure was good enough to win the race if we had the lead. The car worked good on tires on the long runs, so we stole it. I'll take it!"
It turned out to be a good thing for Mark to take that afternoon, because it was his only victory of the 2000 season.
The following week at Talladega, the Valvoline team once again proved their might on a restrictor plate track, with a strong 6th place finish in the Diehard 500. This was the pinnacle of Mark's season as he passed Bobby Labonte for the top spot in the standings. Unfortunately for Mark and his Valvoline crew, things went downhill from there.
Following Talladega, the next five races would obliterate any chances of Mark winning his first NASCAR championship after years of playing second or third fiddle. In that five race span, Mark would tally up three finishes of 32nd or worse and dropped from first place in the points all the way back to 9th.
Included in Mark's troubles during this time span was a flat tire and contact with the wall at Richmond, a blown engine at Dover, and at Michigan they missed the setup on the car so bad they pulled the car into the garage area and used the rest of the race as a test session.
Following that race at Michigan in June, things started
looking up for Mark's team again. They popped off
four top-five finishes in a row stretching from Pocono
in June until Loudon on July 9th. They had worked
their way back up to the 6th position in points -
then tragedy struck again.At the second race at Pocono in July and the following week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Martin would have to endure two finishes in a row of 43rd, last place in the field. First it was a blown motor, and then contact from behind by Mike Skinner sent the Valvoline Taurus into the Brickyard wall. This time, they fell all the way back to 10th place in the points.
Mechanical woes and on-track incidents would leave Mark alone for most of the remainder of the season, but by this time the team was so far behind in the points they would be lucky to make up much ground at all. Following the Indy tragedy, they achieved four top-5's and seven top-10's in the following ten races and no finish worse than 18th. By the fall race at Talladega in October, they had worked their way back up to 7th in the standing once again -- but the bad luck was not over for Mark Martin.
Out of the final four races, the Valvoline Taurus gained a sixth and a third place finish coupled with two finishes of 40th at Rockingham and Atlanta. Although the two good runs in that stretch would allow Mark to keep the 8th position in the point standings all the way to the end, that 40th place finish at the season finale at Atlanta is not the way they wanted to end the season.
"I think we broke the pulleys off the front of the engine, so we're all done, but the Valvoline Taurus was working well today. This has been one of those years for that kind of stuff. We broke things that we run forever and don't break, so I guess you chalk that one up to a little bit of bad luck and we'll have to make 'em even stronger for next year."
For now, next year is all Mark Martin has to look forward to. He hopes that the new sponsorship package with Viagra will bring in a new era of good luck for 2001. And if the amount of bad luck Martin suffered through in 2000 is any indication, next year could be another banner year for the wily Winston Cup veteran.
