Mark Martin puzzled by his Hendrick team’s performance this year
Mark Martin is unsure why his Hendrick Motorsports team has struggled this year. // Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Illustrated
Mark Martin doesn’t know why his Hendrick Motorsports team, which finished second in the Sprint Cup standings in 2009, has struggled this season.
Martin sits 14th in the standings and needs a couple of miracles to return to the Chase For The Sprint Cup after Saturday’s race at Richmond.
Last year, his first with Hendrick, Martin won five races and had 21 top-10 finishes in 36 starts. This year, the 51-year-old Martin is winless with only seven top-10s in 25 starts.
“I didn’t really see this coming for the 5 car,” Martin said Tuesday in a teleconference with reporters. “And I just know that it happens, that things change and competition – the target is a moving target. It always has been and always will be.
“And we were hitting the bull’s-eye last year and we haven’t found the bull’s-eye this year, and we’ll continue to work until we do. But we just haven’t found it. We’re the same group of people that were getting it done last year and we can do it again. We’ll just keep digging until we find it.”
Martin sits 147 points out of a Chase spot entering this weekend at Richmond. To make it, he would need to win and lead the most laps and for 12th-place Clint Bowyer to finish 40th or worse and Jamie McMurray (13th) to finish fourth or worse.
Considering he hasn’t won this year and was 25th in the first race at Richmond, a win this weekend would seem just as unlikely as Bowyer finishing among the bottom four drivers.
“We’ve got ourselves too far behind to expect to jump in there, Martin said.
Martin made the Chase from 2004-2006 and then didn’t run a full season in 2007 and 2008.
As far as Martin is concerned, his team isn’t running well enough right now to challenge for the title, so even if it made the Chase, it wouldn’t be all that satisfying.
The team tried many new parts and pieces with a new setup at Atlanta last week and the car didn’t run well at all as Martin finished 21st.
“At the end of the day you still have to run good to really feel good about yourself,” Martin said. “So if you run good and you miss The Chase, then that’s a crying shame.
“And that’s what we were faced with last year. … For us right now, our focus is to get back up on the level that we were on last year and actually, in one way, missing The Chase will allow us to go out there and take chances on different hardware and different setups and those kind of things that we wouldn’t necessarily if we were in the hunt for the championship.”
Signed to drive the No. 5 car through 2011, Martin said he has remained positive.
“Expectations are really tough to deal with when you don’t meet them, and that’s why I’ve tried so hard to limit and keep my expectations in check,” Martin said. “But still, even as much as I do that, I couldn’t have ever been prepared for having as tough a year as what we’ve had.
“But we’re the same people, and we’re working just the same together as we were a year ago. And that part of it feels good. You gotta focus on the positive. We have a great race team [and] some of the smartest people in the business, very committed. We all really get along and respect one another. And we’re going to work through this together, and we’re going to get better together.”
