Martin wouldn't change his tough days
AP Photo/Cheryl Senter Mark Martin was going to be a star when he hit NASCAR, "The Kid" who couldn't miss before Joey Logano and Kyle Busch were born. But Martin didn't find real success until he changed his life.Julian Martin propped his 5-year-old son between his legs in the driver's seat of the Pontiac Firebird and told him to steer as they raced down a narrow dirt road in the backwoods of Arkansas toward a one-lane wooden bridge.
The closer they got to the bridge, the more horrified the boy became. Less than 25 yards away, he was nearly in tears, screaming, "I can't do it! I can't do it!"
"Well, we'll wreck!" replied the father, a man the son worshiped more than any other.
The son, now 50, cleared his throat as he recalled the moment his dad first tried to teach him to drive. He doesn't talk about it often. He doesn't talk often about many of the moments that shaped his life, particularly those between 1982 and '88 that nearly ended his racing career before it began and shaped him into the man he is today.
But to truly appreciate Mark Martin for what he is achieving in the Sprint Cup Series at an age when most drivers are retired, one needs to understand what he went through to get here.
What he overcame is an amazing story, from being the son of an alcoholic to becoming one for a four-year stretch to going broke and selling everything he owned before clawing his way back to the top of NASCAR's premier series.
It is a story sponsors should be proud to tell, one young drivers in danger of falling into similar pitfalls should pay careful attention to.
There is enough material, as Martin noted when he began to tell this journey of his life, to write a book. And he wouldn't change anything that happened between the front and back pages.
Willis: Martin's moments
From making 1,000 -- and counting -- starts to winning 95 races across three NASCAR series, it's been an amazing career for Mark Martin. Here are 10 defining moments for the 50-year-old. Column
"I'd be a different person if I hadn't gone through all that," said Martin, who trails three-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson by 12 points heading into Saturday night's fifth race of the Chase at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "Who knows? I might have self-destructed. Who knows?
"I might be the same guy as I am today, but I'd be surprised."
Most that knew the young Martin would be, too. They say had he not gone through the pain and embarrassment of losing everything -- as he did after the '82 Cup season, when he was forced to return to a lower series to rebuild -- he might not be the humble man he is.
They say had Martin not turned his desire for alcohol into an obsession for fitness, he wouldn't be physically or mentally able to do what he's doing, at least not at such a high level.
And although Martin insists alcohol was not at the root of his early failures, overcoming it was the key to revitalizing and sustaining a career that one day should land him in the Hall of Fame.
"Any negative that flowed from Mark's personality, either in business matters or otherwise, flowed from his drinking," said Jack Roush, who in 1988 gave Martin his second chance in NASCAR. "When he was sober, in all ways he was a fair, even-mannered and reasonable person to deal with."
When he wasn't? Let's just put it this way, if Martin had come along in today's world of media and sponsor scrutiny, Roush admittedly might have turned elsewhere.
"The intoxication manifests itself in different ways for different people," said Roush, who won 35 races with Martin before Martin left the team to run a partial schedule in 2007. "Mark certainly wasn't the Mark he wanted to be and certainly wasn't the Mark I wanted to be around when he drank to excess.
"We talked about that initially. He convinced me in 1987 when we made that deal that he would deal with it and it wouldn't be a problem."
It hasn't been. Martin had his last drink in 1988, three years after his father stopped.
Even if he wins the title he's been runner-up to four times, quitting drinking will be his greatest accomplishment.
"My dad was an alcoholic," said team owner Rick Hendrick, who gave Martin a chance to return to a full-time schedule this season. "He quit in 1978, and he turned his life around. It was phenomenal what he accomplished when he made that decision.
"So I've lived with it and I know what a heartache it is and I know how hard it is to overcome. Not many people can whip that."
Martin did because the passion to be the best behind the wheel was greater than the passion to drink. It's a good thing, too, because, as his older sister, Glenda, noted, "He just wasn't a very good drunk."
"Mark saw how Dad was better [when he stopped]," Glenda said of their father, who died in a plane crash in 1998. "Our whole family was better once Dad got in control of his addiction. We were all better for it, so he thought, 'I can do that, too.'
"It was hurting him. The addiction part had become very painful. He just made up his mind he was tired of the pain. The only way to stop that was to change."
"The Kid"
Martin was in a relaxed position, legs propped up and the back of the recliner slightly tilted. The rest of his body language said anything but, with arms tightly folded across the chest and feet churning as he relived his past.
"I had a magical career until '82," he said in a soft voice. "Magical. Racing is all I knew, and so I picked my stuff up and started over again."
In 1981, Martin was known as "The Kid," the phenom from Batesville, Ark., who was destined for stardom. He was Kyle Busch and Joey Logano way before they were born.
He wasn't in the greatest shape and didn't feel the need to be. He was openly confident, just short of cocky, believing he could beat anybody on any track.
He turned down offers for what most considered better equipment, believing he could win in his own stuff as he had done in the American Speed Association with his father as his crew chief and mother as his public relations person.
And why not? He sat on the pole and finished 11th at Nashville in only his third Cup start.
"If I sat on the pole twice in five races in my own car, why would I want to drive theirs?" Martin recalled. "I didn't think their car was as good as the one I could build. I didn't know nothing."
He thought he knew everything. In 1982, Martin just missed winning the rookie of the year honor that went to Geoff Bodine. He posted eight top-10s and two top-5s without the full-time commitment of major sponsorship.
Then the money his father provided through his successful trucking business and what little sponsorship Martin had began to dry up. Darrell Waltrip, who won the title that season, tried to persuade him to run a limited schedule and save money. Martin wouldn't listen.
By the end of the year, he was so in debt that he had to auction off all his equipment and look for a ride. In stepped Jim Stacy, who had won a couple of races with Tim Richmond that season.
Martin naively accepted, not realizing Stacy "was going broke."
"That's not a nice thing to say," Martin said. "He was tightening his belt. Things were not as rosy as they had been."
Martin crashed in the '83 opener at Daytona and finished 28th. It got worse the following week.
"It was raining," Martin said. "Me and Tim Richmond and a couple of three other drivers decided to go lollygagging [to eat lunch, actually] outside the track. When I got back, I saw my car practicing. The track had dried, and they started practicing while we were standing outside.
"A pretty bad deal. A pretty bad deal."
The worst was yet to come. Martin, who didn't have a contract because "I was stupid," was trying to pass Dale Earnhardt in the seventh race at Martinsville when The Intimidator chopped him.
"Both of us spun and I got hit and the car was wounded and we rode around the rest of the day," Martin said. "I got called in Monday morning, 'You're fired!'
"So if '82 wasn't humiliating enough, that was incredibly devastating."
Martin's world came crashing down. He didn't have a ride or the prospects for one. He considered moving back to Arkansas and working for the family business, where he could have lived in relative comfort without struggling for the rest of his life.
He instead opted to move to Wisconsin and start over in the ASA, where he had first earned his reputation with three titles.
He disappeared.
He also started drinking heavily, mostly late at night after work was done.
"He developed a real problem," Glenda said. "There are few things in life Mark can't do well, and drinking is one of them."
Starting over
Arlene Everett resisted the first half-dozen times Glenda attempted to introduce her to her younger brother. She was busy raising four daughters from her first marriage and had aspirations of being an archeologist. She knew nothing about racing, although she was familiar with the names Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough.
"But really I couldn't have told you whether they raced cars or played golf," Arlene said.
But for some reason she agreed in December 1983 to meet Mark, who had stopped in Batesville for Christmas on his way to Wisconsin. Less than a year later, they were married.
"She took an incredibly stupid chance by marrying me when I was trying to make a living racing cars the way I was," Mark said. "I moved her seven times the first five years we were married. It was tough."
Arlene didn't understand everything her husband was going through. She simply thought he was moving from one racing series to another, not realizing NASCAR was so high profile.
But she realized immediately that he was incredibly focused on racing to the point that "he didn't know what else was going on in the world." She also realized he drank too much.
Fortunately, Mark realized that, too.
"Genetically speaking, a son of an alcoholic is five times the risk of becoming one than not," he said. "My dad had problems all through my childhood. I said I would never be like that.
"At some point, I had to look at myself and say, 'Either I am like that or I'm not going to be like that.' That's a hard thing."
It's especially tough because drinking was so much a part of the racing environment then. Most of Martin's heroes, such as Dick Trickle, had drinks after a race, then headed to the bar to drink some more.
Martin wanted to be around them, so he drank even though he wasn't crazy about it -- at first.
"They always made fun of me because my beer was always hot," Martin said. "I'd get two inches down on it and have to get another one because it was so hot. When you go from that to not being able to control it, you know …"
There were a lot of drivers who could have been considered alcoholics in those days, particularly in Wisconsin area, where there seems to be a bar on every corner. Trickle was known for having a cigarette in one hand and a Pabst Blue Ribbon in the other.
"Like I used to say, we might forget the toolbox, but we're not going to forget the beer cooler," Waltrip said with a laugh. "Those were Mark's heroes, and he tried to emulate them. The problem at the time was if he did something, he did it all the way.
"That was the way he was about his drinking. If he drank, he drank all the way."
Martin admittedly was -- and is -- an obsessive-compulsive. Steve Hmiel, now the director of competition at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, saw that when Martin drank.
"I saw a couple of times where I thought, 'Ah, that's not cool,'" Hmiel said. "When he came up racing, Rusty [Wallace] was the cool guy who had all the chicks. Well, when Mark drank, he wanted to be the cool guy that had all the chicks."
All agreed that Martin never drank before a race and that the drinking didn't affect him on the track, at least not when it came to the shorter races in ASA for which physical stamina wasn't a prerequisite. He finished fourth in points in 1984 and again in 1985, capturing six poles and winning four races. In '86, he won seven poles and five races and captured his fourth ASA title.
Late in 1987, Martin was introduced to Roush, a successful road racer and drag racer who was planning a move into NASCAR. He was recommended for the Roush job by 1983 Cup champion Bobby Allison.
Allison wasn't aware of Martin's drinking problem. Roush was, though, and he made it clear that for the partnership to succeed, the boozing had to stop.
Martin was so excited about the opportunity that he didn't ask for a contract or question how much he'd earn.
"He did have a drinking problem and it did manifest itself in the first year and we did talk about it," Roush said. "It did place jeopardy on the relationship going forward."
Second chance
Martin had been with Roush only a few months when he arrived at Daytona International Speedway for a test session.
In an effort to support their driver's commitment to working out instead of drinking, Hmiel, the general manager, crew chief Robin Pemberton and mechanic Ryan Pemberton joined him at the gym for a few morning sessions.
"I would say I was in really good shape," recalled Ryan Pemberton, now the crew chief for Brian Vickers. "But by the third day, our muscles were so sore they didn't even work. I couldn't lie down on the creeper and go underneath the car."
Robin Pemberton and Hmiel experienced similar pain.
"Back in those days, we drove to the test," said Robin Pemberton, now NASCAR's vice president for competition. "Thank goodness we had the world's largest cargo van. We were taking turns lying out in the back on the way home.
"But Mark was a positive influence to all of us at those times. He gave us heart for Roush Racing and as a team."
All agreed Martin's decision to stop drinking was key to his development from a good driver to one of the sport's top drivers.
"He re-funneled his obsession, and he went nuts," Hmiel said. "He'd say, 'Come on and go with me [to the gym].' I'd say, 'Hell with you.' He found a way to channel all of his energy into racing."
Martin did that with a vengeance, and the results showed. After a mediocre first season -- 15th in points -- he ran off 12 straight years of eighth or better.
He finished second in points three times in that stretch -- he added a fourth in 2002 -- making him arguably the best NASCAR driver without a title.
"As bad as he was at not taking care of himself before and running around crazy, he went 180 degrees in another direction," Waltrip said.
Robin Pemberton agreed, saying Martin might have become "just another driver that wins a race every now and then" had he not redirected his life.
"It's a good thing what he chose to do," he added. "Other people may have laid down and given up."
Martin wasn't about to waste this second chance. He was smart enough to realize, perhaps because of what he went through with his father, that he and everybody around him were better off with his new lifestyle.
"I took stock one day of where I was at and where I wanted to go and the man I wanted to be, and that couldn't be a part of it," Martin said. "When I quit, I had to find different friends and different things to do.
"I envy people who can drink socially. I wish I could, but some people can't."
Inspiration
Martin leaned forward in his recliner, his voice rising a few octaves and the body language from his 5-foot-6 frame as animated as it gets, as he explained why it's not life-or-death if he doesn't win a Cup championship.
"Well, let me ask you a question," said the driver who is tied with Johnson with a series-high five wins this season. "If I win the championship this year, will that make me a better driver? Will that mean I'm better than I was before I won it?"
The answer is no. But if Martin wins the title, it won't be simply because he was the best driver this season but because he had the strength and willpower to overcome all the obstacles and demons of his past.
In the minds of those who understand that, he already is a champion.
"Anybody that overcomes an addiction, it is something to be proud of," Hmiel said.
Hmiel has a greater appreciation for Martin than most because of the way Martin has helped his son, Shane, who was banned from NASCAR for life after failing a third drug test.
"He's an inspirational guy," Hmiel said. "More people need to understand not only has he done great things on the racetrack but personally he is a wonderful person. I'm not trying to be too glowing about that, but that guy was born wealthy and didn't need to do anything the rest of his life. And on top of that he was an alcoholic.
"I'm not saying that to belittle him. The guy has overcome everything to be where he is right now. Everything he gets, he deserves."
You won't find anybody in Martin's past or present who feels differently, even if the person has a stake in the championship, as Roush does with Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle.
"The commitment he made in '88 when he was having trouble with the drinking, having the stamina and being able to have the endurance that was required to close the deal … to experience the manifestation of his recognition of that and witness the commitment and determination he had is something you had to be there to see," Roush said.
"He has become one of the most driven and committed people I've ever seen."
Many see that but don't fully know what it took for Martin to get here. Hendrick didn't when he persuaded Martin to give up his part-time schedule for a run at the championship.
"It's hard to believe he ever had a problem," he said. "It's a heck of a story that he had the commitment to do that."
It is an amazing story, one Martin doesn't talk about often because there's still a small part of him living it.
"People don't realize how complex he is and how failing that first time in something he loved hurt him so badly," Waltrip said. "It was embarrassing. He'd never failed at anything before, and he thought it was going to be a piece of cake.
"I'm sure looking back and where he is today, he certainly feels like he's vindicated himself and put all that behind, but way back in that mind of his, there's a deep dark corner there that won't let him let go of that."
That's because the past is what made Martin the man he is. Had he not gone through the tough times, he might be just another driver having a good season.
He might not be driving at all.
"When I say I made mistakes, I made lots of mistakes," said Martin, his feet still churning hard. "But they shaped me and made me what I am. Without being knocked to my knees, I'd be a different person. I don't know if things would have worked out as well."
David Newton covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at dnewtonespn@aol.com.
